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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."
The Republicans are to blame for this one.
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.
'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.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
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.
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.
Please help metamoderate.
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?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
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.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
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.
Write your own Choose Your Own Adventure. http://www.freegameengines.org/gamebook-engine/
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".
Since when has the US won the war? It's over? *slaps forehead* I better go check the newspaper.
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]