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

Actually....

[cyberon22]

The Republicans are to blame for this one.

Re:Actually....

[OECD]

It's more banal than that. I see this every day. We have to design a newsletter? Use Excel, it works great in accounting!

Only difference is that lives aren't at stake ( but how I wish they were...)

Re:Actually....

[eli pabst]

Funny, they're busy blaming the democrats for the war this week.

Re:Actually....

[sqrt(2)]

When the only tool you have is Excel, every problem starts looking like a spreadsheet.

Re:Actually....

[Anonymous Coward]

When the only tool you have is Windows, every problem starts looking like malware.

Re:Actually....

[iluvcapra]

....Ahem

Re:Actually....

[joto]

Yeah, I know one professor who is doing some mechanical stress simulations in access+vb :/. I WAS shocked when he told me. I couldn't convince him to learn a compiled language like C, because "it was too hard".

I agree with him. C is not easy. It is a language for programmers, not for people that are mainly into e.g. mechanical stress simulations. Granted, with appropriate libraries, and all that, you could make an environment suitable for mechanical stress simulations, using C as a base language. But unless you already have that environment, and are able to show it to him, there's no reason for him to start learning C.

I suggest you try to show him MATLAB instead, and see if he's more impressed this time. (And the matlab compiler makes this a "compiled" language too, if "compiled" is of importance to you (I assume it's totally unimportant to him)).

Re:Actually....

[Lerc]

Tech may not have lost it but I bet it could win it.

Here's a crazy idea of mine that the govt would never consider.

How many people in Iraq (27 million and falling)?

There's that OLPC XO thing. Buy one for evreryone, That's a ridiculous amount of money but not as ridiculous as the amount they've already spent.

Set up some good international networking (actually I think they have that part already). The mesh will take care of the local.

Run a campaign in the US that it is duty of every American to talk to an Iraqi, get to know them let them get to know you.

"do you support the war? Talk to the Iraqis and help win it"
"against the war? Talk to the Iraqis and help end it"

There'd have to be support to cover the language barrier, but where there's a will, there's a way*.

Yep it's a crazy idea, but there's this bit in the back of my mind that says it's hard to fight a war against people you know.

* I guess that was the problem from the start, there was never really a will.

now politely ignore my sig just this once.

Re:Actually....

[Decado]

When the only joke you have is windows, +1 Funny may as well be -1 Redundant.

Re:Actually....

[Tom]

There'd have to be support to cover the language barrier, but where there's a will, there's a way*. There is also a cultural barrier that is vastly underestimated. Do you really think a starving farmer from somewhere in Iraq has even a common ground for a conversation with a fat redneck senator? Or a wallstreet broker? Or even a WalMart cleaner? Their worlds are so different that finding even something where they can relate would be a challenge.

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:Actually....

[monopole]

It's much worse than an over-reliance or mis-application of technology, or having the means justify the end, it's mistaking a means for an end.

Jeff Huber just put up an excellent essay on this which can be summed up by the two quotes by Clausewitz:
"Policy is the guiding intelligence and war only the instrument, not vice versa."
and
"If we do not learn to regard a war, and the separate campaigns of which it is composed, as a chain of linked engagements each leading to the next, but instead succumb to the idea that the capture of certain geographical points or the seizure of undefended provinces are of value in themselves, we are liable to regard them as windfall profits."

The most efficient "kill-chain" won't do squat unless there is a clear and achievable objective. The other problem is that the "kill-chain" that is being used is purpose built for set piece battles between great powers basically 2nd generation warfare (web 1.0) versus 4th generation asymmetric warfare.

You don't even need Clausewitz, Powell will suffice. To use a shortened version of the Powell doctrine:
- Do we have a clear attainable objective?
- Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed?
- Have all other non-violent policy means been fully exhausted?
- Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement?
- Have the consequences of our action been fully considered?

Re:Actually....

[Firethorn]

Muslims can't get along with infidels

I'm not one to be politically correct, but I think that a better term would be Islamic Fundamentalists can't get along. Plenty of Muslims can get along with us just fine. When lacking a convienent external enemy like us or Israel, they simply shift back to fighting each other. In many respects I compare it to the Catholic/Protestant fights back in the day.

While I know it'd involve huge amounts of graft and waste, I think that a massive employment program ala the marshall plan would be of great benefit - people with full time jobs are less likely to cause trouble.

Re:Actually....

[CastrTroy]

My dad uses excel for just about everything. Once you learn how to use it, it's quite powerful, and you can do a lot of stuff with it. He designed his deck by making square cells and using that to map out the floor plan. Which is even more impressive, because it's not just a square deck.

Re:Actually....

[chrish]

I witnessed the horrors of a point-of-sale system "written" in Excel just last weekend. When the user clicked on products, it would scroll the spreadsheet around to the next step in the purchase process.

I just knew there was an Access back-end, too, I could sense its evil lurking there. And probably no regular backups.

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....

[anothy]

the fundamentals of the idea are good, but i think the XO isn't the right vehicle (for this; i'm a big supporter generally and encourage everyone to check out the Give One Get One program).

your idea is based on two points: first, do something constructive instead of destructive, and second, encourage communication. both are excellent.
the military is actually doing some of the former, but not nearly enough. we did a lot of damage to infrastructure in Iraq during the invasion, and the standards there were never all that high. the army's sole purpose at this point (really since the "Mission Accomplished" nonsense) should be building infrastructure (water, sewage, housing, power, transportation, and telecommunications) and defense of those assets. if the brass needs to feel like they're doing something more "active", let the marines (who're more "surgical" in their actions, and a lot smaller) go after only confirmed foreign military units acting in Iraq; better yet, though, stick 'em on border patrol and training. the key point here is let the Iraqi military and police forces go after Iraqi terrorists; the US needs to stop killing Iraqis if we're going to stop generating new terrorists.
the second point is trickier. the poster below who noted the huge cultural issues is right: direct communication isn't likely to do much in many cases. i don't have a good answer for fixing the American side of the equation, but the Iraqi side is much easier. Iraq is still a resource-rich country; fix the infrastructure so that business can work normally and normal trade will shortly resume. it's not quite as direct as letter writing, but international trade with close neighbors does a good job of helping people get along better. this has been true for at least a millennium (contrast the attitudes of eastern and western Christians towards their Muslim neighbors around the time of the crusades, for example), and has only increased with the industrial and then technological revolutions.

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.

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?

[greg_barton]

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

== Bad when you create 2x more insurgents because of all the civvies you just collaterally damaged.

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?

[mOdQuArK!]

One rather wonders what would have happened if in 2003 we hadn't sent an Army but just airdropped a few million pacifists into Iraq to sing songs and cuddle with everybody.

We should've sent the guys who said we were going to be greeted with candy and flowers.

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?

[Boronx]

If the insurgents would wait we'd already be out of Iraq and they could be dealing with the local, underpowered government.

What do you believe, a politicians words or the 100 billion dollar permanent bases they are building ? Bases in Iraq are about the only strategic reason for the war that makes any sense, even though it's an evil reason that in the long run probably cannot work.

Re:Blame the Geeks?

[LynnwoodRooster]

Iraqis returning by the thousands to Iraq

Iraqi tribal leaders turning on Al Qaeda, assisting the coalition

Maysan province and Karbala province turned over to Iraq. In fact we've turned over 8 of the 18 provinces to Iraqi control. Baghdad is at a 21 month low in terms of rocket and mortar attacks.

I know it doesn't fit the Left's view of "QUAGMIRE!", but guess what? The surge worked VERY well, Iraq is stabilizing, they are taking control of their own country, we are withdrawing, and in general the populace - via the tribal and local leaders - are supporting the coalition because they rat out the Al Qaeda and insurgent cells.

Maybe, just maybe, we are actually winning? No, can't be that would mean that the Bush Administration finally did something right and we all know that Bush=Hitler and can never do right...

Re:Blame the Geeks?

[andy314159pi]

know it doesn't fit the Left's view of "QUAGMIRE!", but guess what? The surge worked VERY well, Iraq is stabilizing, they are...

You have to remember that there are anywhere from 0.5 to 1.3 million dead Iraqi civilians.

From this alone, the only rational conclusion of any humane person is that the aftermath of the invasion has been an unmitigated tragedy and disaster.

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?

[Hunter-Killer]

I would be hesitant to lay the blame on "unproven" technology or bad leadership.

The US relies on maneuver warfare. In order to get your pieces in the right place to achieve decisive victory, you have to know both the board layout and the position of both yours and the enemy's forces. The enemy's location is deduced from intel, be it satellite/aerial photos, human leaks, or intercepted communications. What about friendly forces? At the start of the Iraq War, the latest fielded development was a real-time force monitoring system (I don't recall if this particular tech was Blue Force Tracker, or it that came later). By being able to accurately determine the location of your forces, friendly fire incidents and gaps in your attacks could be minimized, resulting in a much higher level of combat effectiveness. The Army division that had this tech at the start of the conflict was the 4th Infantry Division. Where was this high-tech fighting unit? Stuck in Kuwait, because Turkey decided they didn't want the US to use their country as an launching point into Iraq. Without adequate port facilities, 4th ID's entry into Iraq was delayed by a month, rendering the technology's intended purpose (army vs army battle tracking) unnecessary. Is this a failure of technology, or of generalship? I say no, as it would be a matter of diplomacy to negotiate access to Turkey's ports. The military's contingency plan was to proceed without 4th ID, and they were able to succeed without them (we used to poke fun at the 4th ID "I missed the war" patch wearers).

As for the communications technology itself (Mobile Subscriber Equipment, or MSE), there were many inadequacies. The equipment was first fielded in '89, and apparently designed for the Fulda Gap, as leaving the equipment shelter's door open would result in overheating and systems crash (in some cases in less than a minute) in the desert heat. Its biggest failing was if it was necessary to establish comms, either a satellite terminal was used, or a directional antenna had to be erected and oriented, and its trajectory plotted, just to communicate with one (1!) node. By the time this was completed, the supported unit was ready to depart the area. MSE just couldn't keep up with the breakneck pace of modern combat. Most of the blame can be laid squarely on this "proven" technology. Then again, the fact that the Army was able to outrun its communications equipment is equally a credit upon its operations, as were there setbacks in offensive operations, the equipment would have been there to support the battle. Communications wasn't the only problem, as logistics (fuel and water) were in short supply almost from the beginning, and long after the network had stabilized.

Re:Blame the Geeks?

[deniable]

It depends on who gets the building contracts.

Re:Blame the Geeks?

[andy314159pi]

The authoritative study of civilian casualties was done by a group from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Here is a link to an article bolstering the validity of the study; it has links to a review of the original study.

The "iraq body count" guys are just counting dead listed in press releases.

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?

[director_mr]

I'm not sure why this post was rated +5 insightful. It seemed about as ill-informed as the one it complains about. First of all, there is no indication that the US is less prepared for a natural disaster because of the war. These claims were made in regards to California wild-fires but were immediately refuted by the California National Guard, and by Democrats as well.

Second, its not cute to mangle words like administration with maladministration. It makes the poster sound like a 14 year old trying to sound smart. Throwing in a lot of swear words makes the poster seem closer to an internet tough guy than someone who I would take seriously. Its really easy to claim everything is a conspiracy. But could it be possible that the Bush administration recognized an actual threat to global and US security? Militant Islam (or terrorism) seems like a threat to our way of life to me. Now how the Bush administration proceeded in dealing with that threat is a place where people can disagree, but I would be interested to know if the poster feels Militant Islam (or terrorism) is an actual threat or a tool for this conspiracy theory I see so many people going on about.

Also I feel the poster shortchanges the intelligence of the average person in the military. Most of them I have talked with agree the Bush administration has made errors in the execution of the war. When it comes to that, the US has always made errors in its execution of war throughout history. If the servicemen and women will vote for Republicans, could it be that they feel Democrat policies would be even worse? Is the only conclusion really that they are all being tricked and used and taken advantage of?

In the end it just seems to me like the poster is treating everything he or she doesn't agree with with contempt instead of with respect and consideration. I have no idea why people find that insightful. I've heard WAY more insightful critiques of this war from other sources.

Re:Blame the Geeks?

[GooberToo]

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.

That is actually a factually incorrect statement. The correct statement is, "...people shoot at you when you violently invade/overthrow their corrupt government, which they themselves hate, and peacefully occupy their nation." The difference being, had we "violently occupied their nation", as you state, it's very unlikely things where be anywhere near as bad as they are today. This is a point which everyone notes was a huge mistake (among many) and you seem to have forgotten. In fact, it's regarded as the largest mistake of the war.

The second largest mistake was completely disbanding the Iraqi military, which would could have then used to smoothly transition power while they prevented the growth of the cancers which exist there today.

Re:Blame the Geeks?

[ThePlague]

Peacefully Occupy. Orwell would be proud.

Re:Blame the Geeks?

[bindo]

Thank you anonymous coward.

(hell I know I'm feeding the troll but this is too good to be true and its been modded Insightful !!!)

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.

Except, it wasn't the right tactics YOU IDIOTS! (that is not to say americans, but those who actually believed in good faith).
The whole world was shouting this truth in your face but you rather believed false intelligence.
Before you study geography and history THEN you go around the world starting wars. NOT the other way around.

Hell I'll repeat that: WE TOLD YOU 5 years ago you would have needed to change hearts and minds to install a true democratic republic THERE. You CAN'T do that with the military alone. Actually you needed the military to get in BUT it's harder harder to do that job after the military gets there.... You didn't want to hear that. You just wanted a little revenge and some flag waving, who cares about the details. We will win the war in 3 months... Mission accomplished... (shame...)

Ok I'll say it one last time. You don't speak with god. Its a damnned delusion. Next time you "believe in good faith" get back to the church in the middle of a field in the middle of nowhere and shut up.

Where I live we have a saying: "Roads to hell are paved with good faith".

You know what the sad part is ? I actually agree with most of your analysis. You really are a bunch of chauvinist fanatics so full of shit that even after this mess and a good analysis of what went wrong you still cant's believe you are NOT on a mission for god to win the World to America.....
It simple: you screwed up big time because you had crooks waiting for the big military contracts and a wave of ignorant people that were excited to kick some arab ass. Bin laden has been winning all over the place. Not in iraq. America has a damaged image in the world and is now percieved as an enemy by MILLIONS of people in the arab world. You have weakened your allies in those countries. You are now percieved weak as a military who has been effectively slowed down ALOT on a very small budget. Guess cina feels itself quite free to enlarge its sphere of influence while you are stuck there. And russia is again speaking of projecting power abroad thanks to high gas and oil prices. Europe is actually more threatend now than it was 15 years ago. India went nuclear and you are so desperate to contain china that you bent/violated international treaties just to help them. Nobody in those countries would have ever believd to achieve that in 1998. Great job!

Ok go ahead and set Iraq strait. I hope the surge is the start of this positive trend etc. etc.
How long will it take to clean all that other mess??

I'll repeat that
You really are a bunch of chauvinist fanatics so full of shit that even after this mess and a good analysis of what went wrong you still can't believe you are NOT on a mission for god to win the World to America.....
You LOST this battle! and can only hope to change strategy and win the war.

It was simply your fault.

BindO

Re:Blame the Geeks?

[dpilot]

I don't think most people realize what a reversal it was for the Bush administration to put Petraeus in charge in Iraq. He had demonstrated workable techniques years before in Mosul. (?) From what I heard, he was removed, told "We don't do nation-building," and his unit was replaced with "the Striker Brigade," which shows a certain bias or viewpoint from the higher-ups in the war management. To put him back in charge of Baghdad was something of a repudiation of the "Striker Brigade" mentality. Even if I liked what Petraeus did in Mosul, (?) I don't know if the same can be done this much later, with a social/political environment this poisoned, in a place as big as Baghdad, with the resources available.

One thing I don't think the Bush administration understands is that continued occupation time is poisoning the well in Iraq. IMHO we had 60-90 days of good will after the invasion, to begin making daily life for Iraqis better. We squandered it, in fact we did worse, in that we didn't even set the stage well for a hostile occupation. We did things like allow them to carry the weapons and explosives out of their own military bases, and some estimate that with what they took, they can run the current level of insurgency for decades. So it's not a simple case of try this, if it fails try that. Every thing we try that fails, makes the starting point for the next attempt worse. Every month that passes is another month of occupation, and that makes it worse.

Whatever you feel about whether we should or should not have invaded Iraq, just about every aspect afterward has been horribly incompetently managed.

Re:Blame the Geeks?

[LynnwoodRooster]

I respectfully disagree... The Johns Hopkins study is far from authoritative, it is an estimate based upon surveys of the population. The IBC count is hard fact documented casualties, with solid backup.

With surveyed reports, if you asked the ~85 people on my street if they knew anyone who died in the last 6 months, you'd get 85 positive results. ONE of our neighbors passed away about 4 months ago, and everyone knows it. With a survey, you would extrapolate that to 85 deaths, when in fact morgue and hospital/emergency reports would confirm one death.

And regardless of the source of casualties, all are reporting a drastic drop in violence within Iraq. Fundamentally, the surge worked, 45% of Iraq is under direct Iraqi control, terror attacks and suicide bombing (by far the largest source of all deaths) are down dramatically.

AH64s are efficient killing machines

[astrotek]

Our military doesn't have efficient networked killing machines? Go to liveleak.com and look for some AH64 Apache videos from Iraq or Afghanistan. They are killing people from 1-2 miles away with very accurate 30mm cannon fire all while communicating with the guys on the ground.

Catch-22

[Asmor]

Wait...

So tech is bad because it didn't work and so the troops weren't efficient killing machines...

But tech is bad because we don't want the troops to be efficient killing machines.

Is that about the gist of it?

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.

Re:Tech didn't lose the war

[Sepiraph]

The article is fully titled "How Technology Almost Lost the War: In Iraq, the Critical Networks Are Social Not Electronic". The article itself is utter garbage, it is confusing the role that technology played in warefare with the ones that strategic and psychological thinking played. Technology didn't lose the war, if anything it won it. Just ask the dead Iraqi in their tanks, cut off from their communications and were smart-bombed... No, the problem with the Iraq war does NOT lie with technology, it lies with piss-poor strategic thinking. Read the Art of War, the first principle is that it is best to archieve victory without fighting. This is where the US army is utterly failing, they failed to gain any good-will with the Iraqi people, and for good reason too. If anything, the administration had a serious lack of interest in properly re-building Iraq, and more interest in selling out military and construction contract. While I definitely agree that the critical networks to work with in Iraq right now is social, the purpose of the technology mentioned--namely network-centric warefare, was designed to tackle a completely different problem. It takes a completely different tools--namely much better and focus foreign policy, to tackle the problem in Iraq. Finally, the U.S. needs to get out of Iraq as soon as possible, they really have no business there to begin with in the first place, they need to focus on re-build the infrastructure that they destroyed and let the Iraqis govern their own country.

They hired the wrong geeks...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hire those geeks from South Korea, preferably their last WCG Starcraft champion, and you would see how network centric warfare should be...

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

[antifoidulus]

The major fuckup was going, but if the US was going to go, the second major fuckup was firing all members of the Bath party from their positions, even the ones who only became a member to get the job, and barring them from serving in the government. These were people with lots of experience in keeping things running in shitty conditions. It also let the Sunnis know we were there for petty, petty revenge and the Sunni insurgents interpreted that accordingly.

    Whats even funnier is how Bush keeps on comparing Iraq to Japan and Germany after WWII, but in those places most of the government infrastructure was left by the military administrations. Leaving these people in place probably helped stave off even larger amounts of starvation, kept the police running etc. But Bush has never, ever been an empiricist. To him, the ONLY thing that matters is ideology. If something they did turns south, that simply means that the ideology wasn't pure enough, since to them the ideology is never wrong. This is why nobody likes Bush today, he refuses to ever admit that maybe his ideology isn't perfect, and instead of stopping bad ideas, he just delves into them further.

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).

Re:Or we could blame pre-emption

[Dachannien]

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? Keep in mind two things: the intelligence coming out of the end of the Clinton administration indicated that Saddam had WMDs - Clinton himself has said so - and furthermore, Saddam was trying to make it seem like he still had WMDs because he feared the threat of war from Iran.

In terms of mismanagement of the first half of the war, though, I agree with you that Rumsfeld should catch a lot of the blame. He was touting the leaner meaner military at the time, and it became clear later that substantially higher numbers of troops were required to pacify the country. Further, the events shortly after the regime's fall, such as taking very little response to the looting of museums and the rapid increase in crime, indicated that the military was taking a hands-off approach, which was the wrong answer since the power vacuum contributed greatly to the rise of al Qaeda and the Shiite militias.

Fortunately, things are taking some significant upturns there, and while I don't credit the troop surge with the beginnings of this success - largely, it's al Qaeda overplaying their hand and Muqtada al Sadr calling off his men that made it possible - it is fortuitous that the surge allowed us to press that advantage so that legitimate Iraqi military and police forces could set themselves up.

Re:Or we could blame pre-emption

[Weedlekin]

"Keep in mind two things: the intelligence coming out of the end of the Clinton administration indicated that Saddam had WMDs - Clinton himself has said so - and furthermore, Saddam was trying to make it seem like he still had WMDs because he feared the threat of war from Iran."

This does not refute the parent's assertion about the evidence of a threat to the US not being there. Saddam used WMDs in the Iran / Iraq war, and domestically on Kurds, and in both cases, the WMD technology and its delivery systems were little better than those used in the trenches of WW1. As was the case in 1916, these sorts of weapons are localised threats, not international ones, and certainly not intercontinental ones, and as the Sarin attack on the Tokyo metro amply demonstrated, organised terrorist groups who wanted to use such things could easily obtain the equipment, knowledge, and people to make them without Saddam's help.

Re:Or we could blame pre-emption

[Petrushka]

The military [...] took full control of a country in less than a month.

However, in the the void of a government of Iraq, and undefended borders, [...]

Something weird happened between those two sentences. What was it?

Sure, blame the geeks...

[greg_barton]

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

Honest question

[Frogbert]

I have a honest question, and I haven't been able to find a decent answer anywhere. Why, exactly, are our countries armies over there fighting in Iraq? Why did American even start this war?

I have yet to hear a politician actually say why, and I really can't seem to get a straight answer out of anyone.

Re:Honest question

[WK2]

It upset our oil supply, thereby raising the price of oil. The oil cos, and subsequently the Bush family, liked that. Halliburton got paid way too much for a government contract that was handed to them on a silver platter. Every stock holder in Halliburton, including most of the Bush administration liked that.

I'm sure there were many reasons we went to war. They all point to money and power.

Re:Honest question

[NorQue]

It boils down to conglomeration of a terribly incompetent, but trying-to-overachieve administration, a bunch of rightout lies and a big media clusterfuck in a lot of countries. IMO. This Wikipedia article might be an interesting read for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationale_for_the_Iraq_War

When all you have is a screwdriver

[xant]

everything gets screwed. Even when it's a high-tech efficient screwdriver.

Diplomacy FTW. Literally.

Re:When all you have is a screwdriver

[Thanshin]

First: Diplomacy almost never works. Sure, you can try it over and over again. But eventually, war is the answer between factions of irreconcilable differences. In such instances, peace can only be obtained when one side wins and/or the other side surrenders unconditionally. A side can surrender unconditionally to a diplomat backed by an army.

Diplomacy works most of times, but it's failures are louder.

Look! A three-headed monkey!

[Spy der Mann]

Oh dear, all that "it wasn't my fault" crap just to avoid saying "you were right, we screwed up. It was another Vietnam, after all".

Story moderation

[michaelmalak]

Can we moderate this story "Troll"?

Bad summary

[Thornae]

If you actually RTFA, it says that geeks came up with a solution to a particular problem, i.e. traditional warfare, which was then applied to a different problem (non-traditional warfare / insurgency, etc) and it didn't work so well.

But now a different set of geeks are coming up with new solutions that do work, whilst building on the previous solution.

IOW, Don't Blame The Geeks. Or the tech, for that matter.

Insurgency?

[Dunbal]

From Dictionary.com

1. the state or condition of being insurgent.
2. insurrection against an existing government, usually one's own, by a group not recognized as having the status of a belligerent.
3. rebellion within a group, as by members against leaders.

Funny, the partisans in Iraq are rebelling against a foreign occupier, not their own government. However in the US the word "insurgent" has become the same as "terrorist"...

Oh mod me offtopic, but Iraq has had me sick for the past 4 years. How long did WW2 last again?

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.

An enlisted perspective.

[palegray.net]

DISCLAIMER: This post is not intended to serve as any sort of official statement on the part of the U.S. Navy; it is solely a personal appraisal of how technology affects certain aspects of warfare. Take my thoughts for what you think they're worth, since nothing here is endorsed by anyone working for the D.O.D.

After reading the article, I had to go have a smoke and really collect my thoughts before replying here. I hope my perspective offers a bit of insight into "one man's view" of technology's role in modern combat. First a little bit of background information is in order...

I'm a 26 year old male, active duty enlisted in the Navy. I joined about 14 months ago, leaving a career in computing to serve in the submarine force. Prior to the Navy, I did several years of programming, database development, web application dev/support, and networking on Win32 and Linux/UNIX systems. Needing a change of pace, and generally feeling burned out after working full-time in I.T. since age 18, I woke up one day and enlisted in the service. My family and friends were a bit surprised, to say the least :).

Having been in long enough to form my own (albeit limited) opinion of computing/information technology's role in military systems, I have these thoughts:

(1) The military is mostly comprised of enlisted personnel. Enlisted men and women are, fundamentally, operators. This means they are trained to do a specific set of jobs according to a very specific set of guidelines. We don't make tactical decisions; our job is to inform officers in command of the status of whatever evolution is in progress, and obey orders handed back in response. This means we are trained on specific pieces of equipment, which is increasingly networked to allow for more efficient operations.

(2) It's no secret that the military (and government organizations in general) is a big fan of basing systems on "tried and true" technologies. We use what works, not what the industry is pumping out as the latest, greatest info-tech marvel.

(3) Our reliance on these systems means that we always have to be trained on multiple contingencies, i.e. "if doohickey X is broken, switch over to doohickey Y and proceed." Single points of failure are as much the enemy of fighting units as they are of networks in the civilian world. The human element is therefore still critical in avoiding situational breakdowns, hence the need for constant drilling to ensure proper performance under hostile or stressful conditions.

(4) Monday morning quarterbacking is an inevitable consequence of any large-scale conflict. It's always easy to look back and say "Wow, if only they'd done things this way, it's so obvious that things would have gone better." The military does make a concerted effort to learn from its mistakes; we have a saying that every rule we follow is written in blood, and we take that idea very seriously.

(5) In the final analysis, no amount of technology can prevent loss of human life in war. It's ugly, nasty, sad, but inevitable. Human beings will always defend whatever interests they consider crucial to the survival of their way of life. It's just our nature, the product of an evolutionary process that made us what we are today as a species. Since the dawn of time, we've been constantly incorporating new technologies into both civilian and military operations, with mixed results at every stage of innovation. Again, we learn from our mistakes and move forward.

I hope these thoughts can spark some dialog, and that my views might bring some new perspective to conversations on this topic. Thanks.

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.

[Animats]

That's very much a Navy view: "Enlisted men and women are, fundamentally, operators." In the Navy, the basic combat unit is the ship. Tactical decisions are made at the ship level, not below. A hundred to several thousand people serve the ship; a few officers make the tactical decisions.

Ground troops need a completely different mindset. The basic combat unit is far smaller, a squad or platoon. Individual soldiers make tactical decisions. Marines are especially big on this. It's Marine doctrine to equip the Marine, not man the equipment. The US Army likes to fight with bigger units, but can break them down into small, independent units when necessary.

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...

Don't be silly

[Leuf]

Being a leader means never having to take responsibility for anything until someone further up than you tosses you to the lions to cover their own ass.

Geeks are to blame.

[Travoltus]

Going by the same logic that says geeks are at fault for this...

I say let's outsource these jobs to Iran.

An unconventional war with conventional means

[Hackie_Chan]

It's not the fault of the network-centric warfare, it is the fault of trying to fight an unconventional war with conventional tactics and strategies. In fact, the big irony of General Petraeus Iraqi assessment was that military counter-terrorism operations requires the opposite of network-centric warfare: the United States should be willing to have a lot of servicemen who are up to the notion of trading their own lives in turn for regional stability. Reemphasis on "a lot", because that is what will be needed. Tactics such as bombing targets are out of the question due to the collateral damage. And collateral damage is something that must be minimized as much as possible in order to build a trustworthy relationship with the local populace.
 
Properly curbing terrorism activity in a war zone scenario such as Iraq has an excruciatingly high servicemen casualty in return for stability rate.

Re:!! JESUS! HELP ME KILL MORE PEOPLE FASTER!!!

[amRadioHed]

Wow. Spoken like someone who's never read another book. I know that's probably not true and that only makes it sadder.

"Lost"

[mqduck]

What lost the war for the US/Coalition is the existence of a population that wants us out. How much more clear does it have to be before people come to realize that no army has the capability of controlling such a place?

Author can't get his fact straight

[S3D]

He is calling Hizbollah opeartives (Israel opponent in the 2006 Lebanon War) "primitive foe". That is as far from the trough as it could be. In fact Hizbollah won this war because it was more technically and organizationally sophisticated than IDF in ground war.
According to prisoners each Hizbollah anti-tank missile operator launched more than dozen missiles during the training. The Israel Army representative told that IDF "could only dream" about such level of training. BTW cheapest ATGM cost around 5k $. But Hizbollah also used some 9M133 Kornet (60k $ a pop). And Hizbollah had a lot of ATGM operators, so many that ATGM were used often against Israel infantry. Hizbollah operatives were well coordinated, using mobile phones and radio, well supplied and had had a network of concealed concrete bunkers, with communication lines, optic and stores.
It's plain stupid to call combatant capable of successful launch of modern anti-ship missile "primitive foe".

Framing the issue

[Politicus]

Wired's front cover asks, "What went wrong in Iraq?" and then adds, "Hint: blame the geeks".

Even before you read the article, there is the problem of the question being framed to project the existance of some plan, the assumption that we know what that plan was and that America's campaign in Iraq is failing to achieve the plan's objectives.

Reading the article, you stumble upon another problem with the phrase and that is that by, "What went wrong" Wired means, "Why aren't we winning" and not, "What the fuck happened to the WMD's?"

"Wrong" can mean so many things. Is something going "wrong" in Iraq for KBR? Nope. Is something going "wrong" in Iraq for General Dynamics? Nope. Is something going "wrong" in Iraq for Joe Middle-class American? You bet. Is something going "wrong" in Iraq for America's underprivilaged? Hell, yes. America is not a monolith of interest.

The general public doesn't know "the plan" for Iraq but it is not in the interest of the parties who do to start letting on that the general public doesn't know. Any fairy tale is better than a void. Informed people don't know the plan for Iraq either, but at least they can make educated guesses and validate or invalidate those guesses based on short term outcomes. One thing can be said with certainty and that is that the plan benefits those in the know. I would speculate that the plan didn't account for what is happening right now not because of oversight but because those aspects of what is going on are irrelevant to the plan. Case in point is what happened immediately after Saddam's regime was deposed. Rumsfeld described the massive looting as, "Stuff happens". But, apparently stuff DIDN'T happen at the Iraqi Ministry of Oil because it was magically secured.

I take issue with the article for using the prevailing mainstream media propaganda about Iraq to lash lower level functionary geeks for not winning enough. I take issue with the article for suggesting that a war of choice could be made "more ethical" by the application of lessons learned. As if the pure morality of the American ubermensch is not satisfied with a mere ethical war for freedom and democracy. All questions of immorality need to have ironclad answers that invoke incontinent convulsions of antipatriotism in any individual who even implied to ask them so that ten others may fear to ask in the future.

I would expect as much from the country's paper of record or any local bird cage liner so this raises questions about Wired's stake in this. Are they just another media outlet paroting the MSM for the sake of justifying extra real estate for revenue generating ads? Or, is there some super patriotic editor currying favor with his or her overlords?

Re:Efficient does not imply prolific...

[Artifakt]

Your definition is closer to the one used by most military intelligence types than most definitions, but that's just the problem. Normally, efficiency in military parlance is a measure of how well the unit accomplishes its missions. Goals such as minimizing collateral damage, preventing all friendly fire incidents, preserving existing international relationships, and avoiding loss of life or health among troops are ALL supposed to be incorporated at various decision points if civilian oversight doesn't specifically override them. Goals such as following the Geneva conventions are included, and these are not supposed to be countermanded even by the highest levels of civilian oversight.
        Technically, killing the enemy isn't a goal - defeating him is. Of course this reduces to killing in many cases, but by no means even nearly all. In the Desert Storm era, and the early stages of this war there was a lot of quite satisfactory victory by mass surrender, and in general, the whole area of Psy-ops is about bloodless victories.
      If the military internally has a problem, it's that third tier or lower goals such as reducing events with negative propaganda potential can end up pretty far down the checklist for some commanders and very high for others. (Whatever you think of the morality of torture, allowing the prison abuses was operationally stupid in that it was a result of rating propaganda potential way too low, while giving a blanket order never to stop and search any Mullah, for example, would be putting it too high.). First tier goals such as winning battles, and second tier such as conserving material and avoiding unnecessary damage to civilians, infrastructure, and culture, usually get dealt with pretty darned well.

        There are a high percentage of civilian overseers who don't get the idea that efficiency is a measure of overall success by at least a dozen criteria and often more, and think it's reducible to a simple measure of bodycounts. I rate the percentages of congresscritters and DOD staffers who are totally clueless here much higher than the percentage of incompetent field commanders, based on face to face meetings with some substantial numbers of all sorts during both the Bush 1 and Clinton administrations, and judging by public remarks I have seen for Rumsfeld, Rice, and others since I got out, it's gotten worse.

Almost lost the war?

[mrbluze]

Since when has the US won the war? It's over? *slaps forehead* I better go check the newspaper.

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.

Acting Like Democrats

[yintercept]

The Republicans are to blame for this one.

It is really sad that the Republicans of the '00s decided to start acting like the Democrats of the '60s. Bush outspent LBJ. Like LBJ, he started a war that his predecessors must finish.

The Republicans deserve being kicked for their idiocy. Bush made one of the classic blunders: Never start a war when you are having diplomatic success.

The Republicans deserve to get whacked upside the head. The problem is that the Bush adminstrations leap to left was matched by the Democratic Party's wild flailing to the outer most fringes of the left.

Our problem is that that opposition party hasn't spent its decade in minority improving. So, we are in cycle where we will have politicians behaving badly for the foreseeable future.

Re:Acting Like Democrats

[EvilMonkeySlayer]

I say Reagan, there's nothing that can't be solved by a zombie.. and Zombie Reagan would be able to solve anything. Granted, most of the solving would be done by the "eat brains" method. But zombie Reagan would easily finish the war.

Re:Acting Like Democrats

[Viv]

It's not a complicated statement. It means exactly what it says: Never start a war if you're having diplomatic success.

There's no need to read any more into it. The statement is silent on when you should start a war. And it's likewise silent on many other situations where you shouldn't.

If you want to understand the rationale:
1. The purpose of diplomacy is to get something you want.
2. The purpose of war is to get something you want.
3. If you're already getting what you want through diplomacy (ie, having success), then going to war isn't going to get you any marginal benefit.
4. ... and war has considerably more risks and costs associated with it.
5. Hence: "Never start a war when you're having diplomatic success."

I don't see why this is so terribly difficult to understand.

Re:Acting Like Democrats

[FauxPasIII]

> Extreme pro-freedom, both market and social, doesn't correlate well with the standard left/right divide.

I would dispute that libertarians are pro-freedom, but then you have to start mincing over definitions. To bring it back into the nerdy scope that this site specializes in, I would submit that it's analogous to the difference between the GPL and BSD-style licenses. Which is more free? You'll hear lots of heated arguments on both sides, and it boils down to one philosophical difference:

If your system allows an individual the freedom to subjugate the freedoms of another individual, is your system more free or less free?

Libertarianism/objectivism allows just that; an individual or group with enough political or economic power is free to use their power to impugn upon the freedom of others. For instance, WalMart is free to use their economic force to de-facto forbid their employees from bargaining collectively as a union. You, as a libertarian might find that WalMart's freedom to hire and fire as they see fit without limitation is what is required for a free society; others would argue that the right of the workers to freely associate and to bargain collectively is of greater value, i.e. leads to greater overall freedom.

Don't forget the facts!

[uvajed_ekil]

While tech failings may have hindered our boys' progress, and perhaps put them, in danger moreso than was necessary, that doesn't matter. The mission was accomplished years ago!!! Don't worry if you had anything to do with what went wrong, WE WON!!!!!!

...now if we could only convince the "terrist" insurgents, the Iraqi people, and the rest of the world (aside from the governments of the UK and Australia), we'd be in business.

Minimizing your own casualties frustrates the aim

[Archtech]

Actually the US armed forces are the most efficient bunch of people in history when it comes to killing other people quickly and en masse.

Their only shortcoming is that they aren't very discriminating about exactly whom they kill. Just as long as US casualties stay low - grotesquely low in terms of the history of armed conflict, although of course any casualties on your own side seem too many. That's a political necessity, when the commander in chief is also the elected president of a democratic state.

Traditionally, war has been "the continuation of diplomacy by other means" (as Carl von Clausewitz neatly observed). That meant exerting pressure on specific people whom you wanted to influence, and - if necessary - killing them and their supporters.

The USA has always been adept at the form of diplomacy that involves choosing partners iin foreign nations who are likely to further US interests, and supporting them by all manner of means. Unfortunately the subtlety of this approach breaks down when "continued" by the modern American way of war, which is basically to break into a territory and kill everyone in sight very quickly. That tends to be counterproductive, because it eventually pisses everyone off. As soon as "Shock and Awe" was mentioned, it was immediately obvious that it was essentially just 21st century Blitzkrieg. And despite all the rubbish about "precision targetting", it is about as selective as Blitzkrieg - in other words, not at all. Everyone within the blast radius dies. And the blast is not necessarily centred on the chosen target, and the chosen target is not necessarily what it is thought to be. Remember the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, or the 30-40 publicly announced bombings of "safe houses" where Saddam Hussein was allegedly hiding in 2003? All those bombs hit and destroyed their targets - although we later learned that Saddam was not in any of them. Want to guess who was?

Minimizing your own casualties, desirable as it is in terms of domestic politics, turns out to be disastrous in terms of foreign politics. War cannot be a continuation of diplomacy if it lacks subtlety and discrimination. Moreover, in the long run it will be disastrous domestically too - when even the US media can no longer suppress the truth about the real damage done to Iraq and its people.

{citation needed}

[Nicolas MONNET]

• This post makes unfounded statements. Please help improve it by providing references to reliable sources.

Diplomacy almost never works[citation needed]

War crimes

[Nicolas MONNET]

The war against Lebanon wasn't directed at Hezbollah.
Proof: Israel bombed Beirut, where there's no, and has never been any Hezbollah. It bombed *on purpose* (that's what those LASER GUIDED MISSILES the US sold do) the Beirut oil refinery, leading to the biggest oil spill in history in the mediterranean sea. It bombed most bridges in the south of Lebanon.
Friends of mine got bombed in this war. They weren't part of Hezbollah. However, unsurprisingly when you have a couple more neurons working than your average likkudnik neocon, it made Hezbollah popular with those who used to oppose them in Lebanon.
Mission accomplished! Or rather, war crime accomplished!

To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.

(Robert H. Jackson, chief US prosecutor at the Nurenberg trials)

If all you have is a hammer....

[argStyopa]

Armies kill things. Technology has made our military, man for man, the most effective and efficient killing machine anywhere. The invasion of Iraq and the annihilation of its military took 3 weeks and a handful of casualties, hardly more than we'd have had in almost any live-fire exercise on the same scale.

After that, however, and despite the fact that the military is a conveniently well-organized and broadly capable group of trained men and women that can be ordered to do just about anything, we didn't need a massively efficient and effective killing machine. We haven't for years now. IF we insist on the paradigm that it is our responsibility to rebuild any country we knock over, we NEEDED a wise, foresightful, thoughtful, and empathetic administrative POST-confilct authority. We didn't have it. What we got - charitably speaking - was a collection of hastily thrown-together policies based on really nothing but optimism, a lack of any strategic direction cognizant of the political, religious, and tribal realities, as well as ex-pat Iraqi opportunists who saw their chance to nab some power and wealth.

Think of the Army as a supremely well-balanced and perfectly crafted chainsaw - perfect for treecutting. Once you've cut down the forest, and want to try to build a city, is it any wonder if the chainsaw - no matter how wonderful - turns out to be nearly useless for digging wells, building homes, paving streets?

What they have accomplished is more a testament to the versatility, dedication, and skill of the individuals in our armed services who are willing to try to accomplish whatever they are ordered to do.

Technology, EM, and SIGINT on the battlefield

[ducomputergeek]

Military policy, and things like battlefield simulations and stuff, is along the lines of my graduate research work in political science. In the past two years I've interviewed a number of retired military officers, NCO's, and grunts. (By far the NCO's have been the most helpful, and interesting) At any rate, during the first Gulf war, the folks I talked to who were in SIGINT have all remarked that they were surprised at the Iraqi's level of sophistication.

Just about anytime they fired up a laptop in the field, incoming enemy fire (i.e. artillery shells) would start raining down on their location within 15 - 20 minutes. Others who served in the Kosovo Campaign relayed similar stories only about US forces zeroing in on an enemy's position using similar SIGINT techniques. I remember interviewing one former translator who just remarked, "It's eeiry to be listening to a radio conversation between two parties and then hear the bomb go off in the background followed by static a second later."

I had lunch with an Army Major and a Captain two weeks ago about working with the local Gaurd depot on a project. We got off on the topic of wargames, simulations, and the like when they started discussing a series of wargames they participated in a few years ago where their were Opfor and abandoned their technology for 18th century methods of communications (i.e. couriers, flags, etc.) They were both laughing that how they didn't win, they proved to be far more effective than what any of the "Spreadsheet" simulations projected. (I've heard this story before from another NCO's or at least a similar story.)

Cross posted from WIRED: not a war - invasion

[Catbeller]

Flawed premise. We are opposed effectively because our wars are unjust and the local populations know it and will not surrender. We aren't up against "jihadists" or "terrorists" or "insurgents". We are up against people who want us out of their countries and will not submit to empire.

Afghanistan is a failure because, contrary to America's deeply held belief, it did not attack us on 9-11-01. The Taliban did not blow up the towers. Al Qaida did, and they booked from Afghanistan in the 30+ days it took for Bush to set up the annihilation of that country. We bombed brown people who kinda looked like Al Qaida and who were living in the same country that the outfit formerly camped in. We killed tens of thousands of people, occupied the place, and not coincidentally made our new puppet government sign the gas pipeline deal the Taliban government refused.

Iraq, well, well. A pack of lies to invade a helpless, non-hostile nation. We killed 100,000 outright and another 900,000 died from the effects of the occupation. Two million are homeless and at least a million of those have fled their own country. Girls are selling themselves in Syria to feed their families bak home. We are being opposed because we are bastards, not because we haven't "social networked" properly. We murdered their country. What would YOU do if someone wiped out three percent of all living Americans and then stole everything not nailed down, then dictated a constitution and installed a puppet government? Would social networking make you feel better after your wife and kids were incinerated?

Rifleman Dodd

[Hellburner]

"Individual soldiers make tactical decisions. Marines are especially big on this. It's Marine doctrine to equip the Marine, not man the equipment."

Bullseye. I got my print copy of Wired yesterday (guilty shrug). I skimmed the article. Batshit loony garbage.

I left the Marines 10 years ago. We were just getting digital radios, just getting the first GPS units, and just getting laptops. No intrasquad comms (unless SEALs had them, maybe...) and the laptops were basically just for tracking inventory and leave request admin crap. The GPS units were brand new to everyone...and very cool.

The rest is all crap. Extra weight. To the infantryman: weight is evil unless it is in flavors of 5.56 or 7.62. Everything else is garbage. The radios will break, NVG batteries will die, and you may get stuck without things as basic as fuel or MRE re-supply. Our indoctrinated response to such calamity? MISSION ACCOMPLISHMENT. My GPS broke! Tough shit, break out the lensatic and find the target. My radio is busted! Tough shit...you better stretch those quads, Private.

I understand the quoted Naval "operators" point of view. Its accurate. I know this from experience working with squi---er--sailors aboard ship and my brother's experience as a naval officer. The officers don't learn the tasks, they learn how to manage the enlisted ranks to accomplish tasks to complete the mission.

On the ground it is different. Marines have it pounded into them that it basically takes one Marine to overcome an enemy division. "Rifleman Dodd" was on the required reading list. It tells how a Brit sharpshooter gets isolated in Portugal during the Napoleonic Wars. The concept to be conveyed to the enlisted ranks is basically you are the Corps. One Marine. One Rifle. Accomplish The Mission. Lacking the rifle you accomplish it with a knife, an e-tool, a sharp rock, your fists, or harsh language. End of story.

If every technological gizmo had failed at the outset of the war we still would have kicked their collective asses. The difference was not just technological advantage but human will. Iraqi units would get crushed or fade into the dust because: A: our troops hit what they aim at & B: our troops have individual initiative to complete mission objectives. Its the lesson of Thermopylae writ over and over again: enslaved souls make poor soldiers.

The same point is true of the insurgency. Human will. They want us the hell out. Just like the Viet Cong (remember that one?!?!), just like the Mujahedeen, and just like every other insurgency of the 20th and 21st centuries. The Vietnamese were essentially able to muster the social will to absorb any number of casualties. American society did not have that will. We withdrew, and the conflict resolved itself. The Iraqi insurgency remains in question, since, according to some, it appears that people are growing tired of dying for religious fanatics and Baathist stooges. But the question has nothing to do with technology.

It has to do with will. And the most egregiously ill-conceived and poorly planned military occupation in American history.

Re:if the only president you have is a tool...

[Mister Whirly]

If by WWIII you mean the Cold War, and if by Reagan won it, you mean the Soviet Union collapsed under it's own bloated inefficiency while Reagan happened to be president, then yes you are correct. And please, don't confuse the voters with real issues. The smoke and mirror campaigns haven't even started in full force yet!

Re:It is their DUTY to kill US soldiers

[dwye]

> Why isn't it their DUTY to cast of Islam and return to their pre-Islamic tribal society? Mesopotamia was hardly a tribal society when the Arabs conquered it. It was part of the (Neo-)Persian Empire (which had been the Parthian Empire until some Persian seized the throne. Neo-Persian, to differentiate it from the one that Alexander defeated), and had been civilized since before there was writing to let us date it.

The current tribal nature is from emulating the conquering Arabs, and the devastation left by the Mongols, who destroyed (or let die) much of the desert agriculture, and thus the supporting civilization. In fact, most of the so-called Iraqi Arabs are no more Arab than the French are Germanic Franks, or inhabitants of Turkey really Turkmen.

Re:if the only president you have is a tool...

[sumdumass]

Well, Your missing some things. We are fighting clean wars because we want to seem superior in some respect. We are attempting to avoid civilian casualties and so on.

The issues aren't that simple when we go from taking cheese from the trap to getting backed into the corner. There is a lot of stuff we simply won't bring to the table. Some of this is Carpet bombing, chemical and biological agents, Nuclear agents and so on. when things start unraveling, and people start backing the rat into the corner, don't be surprised when it come straight for you biting and clawing all the way.

So while I see what your saying, and please forgive my Rat analogies, I think your missing the point that the western world hasn't really gotten fed up with it yet. When it becomes more then swatting at mosquitoes, then they will take heavier actions which should put the fear back into place.