How Tech Almost Lost the War

An anonymous reader writes "Blame the geeks for the mess in Iraq? Wired says so. Networked troops were supposed to be so efficient, it'd take just a few of 'em to wipe out their enemies. But the Pentagon got their network theory all wrong, with too few nodes and a closed architecture. Besides, a more efficient killing machine is the last thing you want in an insurgency like Iraq."

Comments

Blame the Geeks?

[AKAImBatman]

Blame the geeks for the mess in Iraq?

More like blame the generals who shot spreadsheet "simulations" back and forth instead of large scale wargames to shake-out the technology. The networked battlefield went out untested with an expectation that it would work as promised. Which is a really dumb assumption for military hardware.

Besides, a more efficient killing machine is the last thing you want in an insurgency like Iraq.

'Scuse me? If you've got insurgents setting up an ambush, blasting the frak out of them sounds like a good solution to me. Fire a DU round from a tank down the road, all the IEDs go "boom" and the insurgents waiting on the side go "slwooop" as the massive air pressure changes suck them inside out.

Efficient killing machine == Good when there are bad guys trying to kill you.

One might argue that the insurgents are not terrorists and are thus not our enemy. A reasonable argument, save for one missing piece of logic. If the insurgents would wait we'd already be out of Iraq and they could be dealing with the local, underpowered government. Instead, they decide to take on the most powerful military in the world. Even on our bad days, that's not such a good idea.

Re:Blame the Geeks?

[Frogbert]

Instead, they decide to take on the most powerful military in the world. Even on our bad days, that's not such a good idea. Really? Because unfortunately it looks like they are doing pretty good so far.

Re:Blame the Geeks?

[AKAImBatman]

#1 - There's a reason for a propaganda machine in any war. If the locals are blaming us for deaths, then the propaganda machine is not doing its job.

#2 - "A more efficient killing machine" in modern military parlance is a machine that strikes more of the right targets and fewer of the wrong targets. We already have the military might to simply wipe Iraq off the map. That would solve the problem, real quick. But it's not the goal. Ergo, more efficient killing machine == good.

Re:Blame the Geeks?

[amRadioHed]

#1 - There's a reason for a propaganda machine in any war. If the locals are blaming us for deaths, then the propaganda machine is not doing its job. Rove, is that you? If the Iraqis are blaming us for the people we are killing due to the war, we could try and do a better job of convincing them that it isn't our fault.

Or maybe we could stop killing them.

Re:Blame the Geeks?

[Waffle Iron]

By your logic, we decisively won the war in Vietnam.

The Iraqi insurgents don't look so dumb when the US will have had to spend upwards of $1 Trillion to kill those 20,000. That's $50 million per dead insurgent.

Re:Blame the Geeks?

[statusbar]

hmm.. Wouldn't it be more cost effective just to pay each of the insurgents half that and convert them to like us?

--jeffk++

Re:Blame the Geeks?

[einhverfr]

Actually, I thought the IEEE's take on this (the Open Source Warfare article) was more insightful. A different issue that you point out, however, is that of clueless generals.

The basic problem is that the problem is not the insurgency-- it is the lack of law and order in Iraq. The insurgency is one manifestation of that, but the lack of law and order allowed them to grow and consolidate from a few hundred tiny groups to several larger networks (see the International Crisis Group's works on the insurgency). We are in a situation in Iraq where the US military is very good at killing people but not very good at fighting the insurgency because we can't do what we need to in terms of controlling the situation on the ground.

You don't want a smaller number of more deadly soldiers. You need a larger number of policemen. We can't do it and we don't train our army to do it. So yes, one has to blame the generals.

However, the issue from the IEEE article was that the insurgent groups are able to use methods that look an similar to those found in the open source community to adapt their tactics much faster than the US military can (the US military is at least an order of magnitude slower in this regard due to standardization, procurement practices, etc). By the time new tactics are underway, the insurgent groups quickly adapt and those tactics are less useful.

The second issue is that for every expensive weapon, there is a cheap and easily available countermeasure. Note that HARM's aren't used much since Kosovo because it is now common knowledge that there are sub-$100 countermeasures using commercial off-the-shelf parts for them (cheap microwave ovens have the same RF as the anti-aircraft radar and HARMS cannot distinguish between them). The Serbians may have lost but I wonder how much damage they caused US military R&D with that one.... Smart bombs also could be conceivably confused using inexpensive jamming devices. In the end, unless you are willing to commit the people to the ground

In short, I personally do not believe that the war in Iraq is winnable under the conditions that W has set out. We will lose that one unless we can make some very difficult choices before the patience of the American people wears out.

In short one needs lots of police on the ground relying less on military weapons technology. We need to stop using American mercenaries (like Blackwater) because they have an inherent conflict of interest. And we need to be willing to withhold our support for the Iraqi government if certain basic measures are not met. These things are not going to happen so we are not going to win.

Re:Blame the Geeks?

[LynnwoodRooster]

Militarily, yes, we were winning. The Tet offensive was a massive failure for the NVA. The only reason South Vietnam collapsed was the US Congress decided to stop funding the war.

Add in the fact that the politicians in DC decided they could run the war better than the generals, and a lot of the setbacks were easily avoided. When you go to war, RELEASE the dogs of war.

Patton had it right - the object of war is not to die for your country, but to make sure the other bastard dies for his.

Re:Blame the Geeks?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but your $1Trillion is not counting the massive benefits we reap-- 1. Complete control of oil fields 2. Eradication of four generations of Arab economic progress in Iraq 3. Elimination of Israel's largest regional threat 4. Real-life testing of our latest weapons 5. Elimination of hope in the Arab world 6. Pretext to torture and eliminate most of the Bill of Rights

Re:Blame the Geeks?

[ozmanjusri]

Wouldn't it be more cost effective just to pay each of the insurgents half that and convert them to like us?

It would be more cost-effective to buy an apartment for every family in Iraq.

Re:Blame the Geeks?

[Durandal64]

One might argue that the insurgents are not terrorists and are thus not our enemy. A reasonable argument, save for one missing piece of logic. If the insurgents would wait we'd already be out of Iraq and they could be dealing with the local, underpowered government. Instead, they decide to take on the most powerful military in the world. Even on our bad days, that's not such a good idea.

Insurgents are hardly the only problem in Iraq. There are gaping ethnic and tribal divisions that have existed for centuries. "Sunni" and "Shiite" aren't just media buzzwords. They mean something. They're two groups that simply don't get along, and the only reason they were relatively passive during Hussein's rule was because he kept them inline through violence and fear of force. The idea that we could just walk in and wave our magic democracy wand was completely idiotic and obviously came about from people who haven't taken so much as a 100-level college course in Middle Eastern history. If the insurgents decided to wait it out, you can damn sure bet that the ethnic cleansing death squads wouldn't. These people have violent disagreements. Yes, they're disagreements about superstitious bullshit (much like how the Catholics and Protestants can't agree on whether the cardboard-flavored wafer is actually Zombie-Jesus or just a symbol of Zombie-Jesus), but they're disagreements these lunatics are willing to kill each other over.

As for your ridiculous bravado about our military, wake up. It's being stretched so thin that we can't even take care of our own citizens in case of a natural disaster because all the National Guard units are gone. If the Iraqi insurgents were World War II Germany, then yeah, we'd be suited to fighting them. But our military is simply not geared toward urban warfare. Our troops simply don't have that kind of training. They went in without knowing dick about local customs, and we fired Arabic translators because they were gay and that's icky. We'd be better off dropping the NYPD or LAPD in there. Cops are trained to get to know neighborhoods, learn who to make friends with and whose arms to twist. Soldiers, in the classical sense, aren't.

It's amazing to me how this maladministration constantly crows about how this is a "different kind of war", but they want to fight it like it's World War II, only not, but kind of. They declare "war" on the tactic of terror (without any Congressional votes), and then they refuse to provide a list of goals that we have to achieve. (And no, "eliminating terrorism" isn't a goal; it's a pipe dream.) So we declare war on terror, and then the president says, "We're at war! I need to expand the executive branch's power and make government waaaaaaaay the fuck bigger!" So what city do we have to capture for the war on terror to be over and for the executive branch to return to its proper size and scope in the government? Who has to surrender? Funny, there are no answers to either of those questions. It's a perpetual war, meant to expand the powers of the presidency beyond any sane interpretations of the Constitution.

Meanwhile, while all this bullshit is going on, you sit there are cheerlead this insane, utterly incomprehensible state of affairs. Yeah yeah, you love the troops, whatever. Someone who supports the troops wouldn't send them to die for nothing in that fucked up sandpit. This administration is a disgrace to the military. They love to talk about how much they support them and what a great job they're doing, but at the end of the day, the army is an instrument which they use to further their own political ends. And the saddest part is that the military laps it up because they get lip-service. Servicemen and women will still vote for these assholes time and time again, and they die for nothing for their trouble. It's a god damn tragedy.

Okay, rant over.

Re:Blame the Geeks?

[VultureMN]

I count myself as among 'the left', and I'm happy to see any gains made in Iraq. If the overall fucked-up-edness rate goes down and less people die, good!!

However, bragging about Baghdad violence being at a 21 month low is, well, setting the bar PRETTY GODDAMNED LOW, isn't it? I mean, it certainly wasn't all kittens and roses 21 months ago, was it?

I hope, for once, that Bush and his advisors get something right and things start getting Good over there (as opposed to "Not as bad as it could be"), but so far, they haven't done much to give me faith.

Re:Blame the Geeks?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Grand total: 14,393-20,697 insurgent dead

Total cost: $500,000,000,000 dollars and counting. Half a trillion dollars.

> As I said, even on a bad day, attacking the most powerful military in the world is a dumb idea.

If the most powerful military in the world is paying twenty-five million dollars a kill, and you have a million footsoldiers (assuming 99.9% the planet's billion-odd muslims are OK, and we're only after the 0.1% that are batshit crazy), it's not a dumb idea -- it's a tactic that's been proven successful on the battlefield, because it's the same way they beat the Soviets.

The fucking dumb idea is that we didn't learn the Soviets' lesson, even though we helped them invent asymmetrical warfare.

Netcentric warfare is a great way to break things and kill people on the cheap. It's a crappy way to win hearts and minds. When we started this little adventure, it was the right tactic, because we believed in good faith that their hearts and minds didn't need changing. We were wrong; they're not a bunch of repressed people looking for freedom, they're a bunch of fucking tribal shitheels. Half a trillion dollars later, it's time for us to either shit or get off the pot. Either abandon the place and let 'em go back to butchering each other (and we'll buy the oil from whichever side wins the civil war), or we just dust off an nuke the site from orbit, because it's the only way to be sure.

Re:Blame the Geeks?

[isoteareth]

Reciprocate? What, because we, the invaders, say it's time to stop?

We invaded their country. Be glad they can't genuinely "reciprocate."

"They were shooting at us. We shot back"

Yeah, it's funny how people shoot at you when you violently occupy their nation. You'd think they'd be all hugs and kisses.

Re:Blame the Geeks?

[localman]

they're disagreements about superstitious bullshit

Some of it is, sure, but a lot of it relates to centuries of real injustice. I don't even remember the details (there's too damn many), but the book "Battle For God" by Karen Armstrong details how these groups have, through many massacres and assassinations, gone far beyond the point where either would back down. That kind of retributive behavior is common human nature. In that regard the Iraqis are no more ridiculous than us.

Figuring out how to end a centuries old blood feud is left as an exercise to the reader.

Cheers.

Re:Blame the Geeks?

[ThePlague]

Peacefully Occupy. Orwell would be proud.

Tech didn't lose the war

[SkinnyKid63]

A president and Secretary of Defense who were concerned with creating popular support for a war are responsible. They ignored reports from military and civilian groups assigned to study the problems with a post-invasion Iraq, that the administration had themselves created, that a larger force would be needed to prevent the destruction of critical infrastructure. Even then, better deployment of available troops could have prevented much of the immediate post-war chaos. However, the current situation is more a creation of a corrupt system of bidding on construction contracts. Many of these contracts are wildly over budget and half-completed. I seriously doubt that you can blame a highly networked military for that.

Re:Tech didn't lose the war

[einhverfr]

Note also that you have companies like Blackwater which need the Iraq war to continue since that is the source of their contracts. So what if a few Iraqis (or a few dozen) get shot? If it prolongs the war it helps the company. No conflict of interest there.

Or we could blame pre-emption

[SuperBanana]

Blame the geeks for the mess in Iraq

How about we blame Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and the other "Hawks" for single-mindedly pushing a US foreign policy doctrine of preemption, which led to a war based on falsified "evidence" of a laughable "threat" to the US?

Networked troops were supposed to be so efficient, it'd take just a few of 'em to wipe out their enemies.

We did beat the "enemy"; only Saddam's core Republican Guard put up any sort of fight. The major fuck-up in the initial "war" was Rumsfeld repeatedly cutting supply lines and over-extending troops.

Then we failed to fill the power vacuum in a country with a history of sectarian violence even under a brutal dictator. Worse, we failed to keep the power, lights, and water going which left the door open for opportunists. Iraq fell head-first into a sectarian civil war, with both sides, most of the world, and half of the United States population agreeing on one thing: we need to get the fuck out of their country.

It's hard to "wipe out" your enemy when every day you create more just by your mere meddling presence. It's like standing in a bathtub holding a garden hose, wondering why the water's rising.

Re:Or we could blame pre-emption

[Enderandrew]

The military were insanely successful in just wiping out the entire defense of Iraq almost overnight. They took full control of a country in less than a month.

However, in the the void of a government of Iraq, and undefended borders, you get the rise of insurgents. Military solutions don't really work there. You need diplomatic solutions to convince the local political and religious leaders to stop insurgents, fundamentalists, and terrorists. You need to convince them via ideology to lay down weapons and rebuild their homes.

It has taken 3 years to hunt down a couple thousand insurgents, and how many more are waiting in the wings, waiting to die in the name of their beliefs? We're not just talking about from the possible pool of 30 million Iraqis, but the entire Mid East. (Note, I'm not saying all Arabs are fundamentalist, but rather we're fighting insurgents from several nations right now. Fundamentalists are almost always a minority in any group, but often the most visible).

We can't fight this war forever, and that isn't the fault of the military or technology, but rather the fault of diplomats and politicians to not finish what they started, and I'm not pointing my finger at any one party. Both parties voted to go in, both parties continue to fund this, and both parties blame the other party as a means to make their party look better, while neither party are presenting solutions to actually finish the conflict. That is a travesty that no one speaks of.

Re:Or we could blame pre-emption

[einhverfr]

Actually you need both diplomatic solutions *and* police. We don't train our soldiers to be good police officers. That isn't there job. If we were smart, we would have an entire military division dedicated to civil security in cases like this.

There was another *huge* problem with the Bush Administration's single-minded push for war in Iraq-- basically it left our interests vulnerable to interference from third parties. I don't know if you saw this but shortly before the invasion (in fact, right when the AUMF was being debated in the Senate), there was a water-rights crisis between Lebannon and Israel. Lebannon calculated (rightly) that the US could not afford for Israel to attack and opened up a new large pumping station. Israel was threatening war (Sharon was stating that it was a cause for war and that it was no different from the 1967 war which he categorized as about water rights). The US sent a mediation team in really fast.... In the end an agreement was reached (largely under US pressure) which allowed Lebannon far more water rights than they had previously exercised.

Now we are in a position where we are tied up. Our troops are generally needed either at home for emergency management, in Iraq or Afghanistan, or in half a dozen places around the world defending US interests against military threats. We don't have the capacity for another war on this scale without abandoning vital allies somewhere in the world. If we were attacked by, say, Iran, would we respond even if it meant being unable to defend South Korea or Taiwan? Iran and Syria know this, which is why their interests at the moment are best served by keeping us tied up in Iraq and not attacking us in other ways (we can't do anything serious against them using conventional warfare unless we either are freed up in Afghanistan or Iraq, or we are willing to potentially abandon allies. Nuclear options are out unless we are attacked first with nuclear weapons).

Sure, blame the geeks...

[greg_barton]

...that way you don't have to admit the galacticly stupid decision to invade in the first place.

What to Blame

[sqrt(2)]

We're being slowly bleed dry in Iraq right now because this administration can't see the difference between actual terrorists who have a grudge against America and insurgents who just want us out of their country. Blaming equipment or protocol would be laughable if it wasn't so shameful and arrogant. The blame for this on going catastrophe rests squarely on the shoulders of one very stubborn man who believes completely and sincerely that he is on the side of justice and that his every action is not only righteous, but indeed endorsed and guided by God himself.

You can't call these people we are fighting terrorists when WE are the foreign troops on their home soil occupying their country. The only justification Bush hasn't abandoned for this war (WMD was a criminal fraud, ousting Saddam already happened), the ludicrous idea that fighting the enemy "over there" makes us safer at home is so mind numbingly flawed at the most basic level that even a C student should be able to see there can be no victory the way the war is being prosecuted. The terrorists who would "follow us home" are doing so anyway, Iraq is diverting precious man power and resources away from stopping them. They are probably already here in fact. The 9/11 hijackers lived in the country for an extended amount of time before they carried out their attacks. Every dollar we spend on Bush's crusade is a dollar that could have went to pay more police officers, increase border security, inspect more cargo. The current plan we're on to get out of this hole is to keep digging until we get to the other side when the first thing you should do when you find yourself in a hole is STOP making it deeper! Violence, even when justified, against religious extremists only begets more violence. It's such an un-American concept to accept, there's no pride in it, no feeling of success but the only way to win is not to continue fighting. Every insurgent you kill insures his sons will be your next generation of enemies. There is a point, and we have long passed it, when someone strong has to stand up and say "Enough." accept the consequences to their reputation, and walk away.

This is a very trying time for the USA, and I fear that we will not long survive the ruinous path we are currently following. Our leader, and calling him that brings me an almost physical pain, will not change our path. He is too stubborn to admit defeat, even if that means dragging an entire country down with him. History will count him among the worst of our Presidents.

Re:An enlisted perspective.

[Anonymous Coward]

From an Army Officer that just got back from Iraq I think the article is hilarious. Technology made my life there incredibly easy and difficult at the same time. Our ability to mass combat power in a short period of time was amazing. That same technology that allowed us to communicate also crippled us when it stopped working. Thank God for the enlisted Soldiers that knew how to use "doohickey Y" when everything went to shit. Blaming the problems of Iraq on technology is ridiculous.

The problem with Iraq is that we think that we can enforce democracy on a country that simply isn't interested in it. My apologies to any civilized Muslims that read this blog, but Southeast Asia Shiite and Sunni sects that dominate Iraq are not interested in allowing people to have an influence in the government. They desire and will ensure that they have full domination over the population. The truth is the population is just fine with that. They are very dedicated to their tribes and will do whatever their respective Sheik tells them to do. I personally think that if you want to solve the problem in Iraq you should allow whatever form of government that works best develop from the ground up. Stop trying to impose democracy. I don't know of any government that has successfully imposed democracy on another country. Democracy will either develop over time from the inside out or it will not develop at all.

Re:An enlisted perspective.

[polar red]

Democracy will either develop over time from the inside out or it will not develop at all. Mod parent up. It's the most insightfull thing I read this year.

Re:An enlisted perspective.

[hey hey hey]

I don't know of any government that has successfully imposed democracy on another country.

The US/Allies imposed democracy on the Axis powers of Japan, Italy and Germany after WWII. While it can be argued that Italy and Germany had some democratic traditions (however the Weimar Republic was really broken), it was foreign to Japan.

That said, it is pretty hard to come up with many more successful examples...

Re:Actually....

[jank1887]

Ok, as an Engineer using it now, let me throw a recommendation for GNU Octave. It's basically an open source equivalent to Matlab. (scripts are ~95% compatible between the two, well documented where they aren't) Gotta start getting away from closed source math, especially where science and technology needing peer review are concerned. Windows version is a Cygwin implementation, but they have a standalone installer that makes it transparent to the user. http://www.gnu.org/software/octave/

I have used Matlab at work for years, recently switched to Octave, and haven't had any problems. That, and there's the free, open source thing. Save the taxpayers a few grand on another Matlab license.

Re:Almost lost the war?

[Marcus Green]

I suspect the Russians were saying that for quite a few years when they were up to their necks in Afghanistan.

Re:Actually....

[Anonymous Coward]

[though the following may appear to be directed at you, it isn't specifically aimed at just you]

here's another crazy plan. i'm gonna come to your house with 7 crips. we're going to kill your wife and rape your daughter before shooting her too. then we'll burn down your house and drag you off to prison, where you will remain until we feel like releasing you, hell maybe we'll rape you too. afterwards we'll give you a laptop with msn so some idiot can tell you how wonderful the war is for you and how you should just stop being so angry and see that it was in your best interests. and here's the REALLY crazy part. we'll be fucking *astounded* when it doesn't work and will declare you a muslim fundamentalist for fighting an invading army waging an illegal war.

at the risk of invoking godwin's law (in my defense this is a statement of fact) the very idea of trying to re-educate your victims even as you slaughter them is literally the same attitude nazi germany demonstrated in russia. again, they were SHOCKED that the russians didn't either give up or join them. after all, they didn't have a chance against the mightiest army the world had ever seen, right?

i'm not new here, i've been reading slashdot since 1999 (the first story i read was about the columbine massacre). yet i'm still amazed at how braindead some of the comments are. god help us, some of these people probably work for the department of defence. you just don't get it. you *cannot* win in iraq. maybe you could have, in a five minute window, but not now. you can kill every last iraqi and you'll still lose. i know there are plenty of people who read that last sentence and are thinking 'killing them all isn't losing!' which just reinforces my point that slashdotters just don't get it. war is not a deathmatch. after your inevitable defeat iraqis will have lost lives but gained a national soul, forged by a great victory against terrible odds. your country on the other hand will have lost good men and the last vestige of what made it great. i hope it's worth it.

Re:Actually....

[KKlaus]

The Iraqis are hardly as monolithic as you imply. The majority of them are more interested in general quality of life issues than anything else, like whether they have a decent job, can go to the market safely, have clean water and electricity, and so on and so forth. It is true that the majority of them don't like Americans, even beyond the amount you might suspect given that we've killed a lot of them, but they don't hate us enough to stop being essentially utilitarian, which is what they are. That's what the Anbar Awakaning, the "Concerned Citizens" groups, and so on are all about. The Iraqis are just people. As much as they might not like a foreign occupying force, they aren't going to die to the last man (as you suggest) to get rid of it. Would you? Would the people you know? Not if life was the least bit livable under the regime, and not if the alternative was worse. For a while, your average just looking out for his family and friends Iraqi thought the Islamists were the better choice. The evidence (and polling) suggests that that is no longer the case. So while I agree that all in all the whole thing may not have been worth it, Iraqis will almost certainly become our "friends" over the long term. Their only alternative is essentially nutcase religious warlords, and they just don't hate us that much. And as a final point, the U.S. Military hardly behaves like the crips, and don't compare the two.