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Fighting the Techno-War
Americans are among the world's best engineers and machine-builders, and their faith in the power of their technological creations to alter history is nearly a national religion. That faith is being tested and challenged in Yugoslavia.
Ever since Vietnam, the idea of the Techno-War has grown as a political and foreign policy tool for enforcing American and Western -- nobody else yet has nearly so much technology-- values and solutions on a dubious and diverse world.
The Techno-War, on display in Serbia and Yugoslavia nightly on cable and the evening news, (this column isn't about whether we should or shouldn't be there) is a powerful reminder of just how complex the mixing of technology and global politics is, especially as the rapid growth of digital technics advances the idea that we really can do and accomplish almost anything, and bend almost anyone or anything to our will.
The Techno-War is a godsend for politicians. Increasingly, it's characterized by these traits:
l. The notion of the painless war. Techno-wars are supposed to be clean, efficient wars, in that they are primarily waged by hi-tech weaponry and machines, rather than by our neighbors, sons, daughters and friends. And their targets, we are told, are buildings and defense mechanisms, not civilian populations.
2. Technology and public relations. Techno-wars are all TV wars, in that they feature lots of digital art showing missiles and bombs - all computer programmed and controlled -- hurtling towards grainy targets, then obliterating them. "Let me show you what our amazing new technology can do," enthused a British General on CNN last Saturday, as he urged reporters at a press briefing to pick up their personal video copies of smart bombs landing on target and demolishing buildings. Public relations are an essential part of Techno-Wars - sometimes it almost seems as if they're the point.
Next to pictures of lawyers screaming and buildings burning, TV loves nothing better in all the world than the picture of a bomb zeroing in on some evil building. The Pentagon loves this even more, since that's how they get money from Congress to buy and build more things.
So beginning with the Gulf War, the unholy marriage between these two -- satellite-fed screen journalism and the military -- has characterized the presentation of the Techno-War. If we have no idea quite what we're blowing up or why, we are amazed and delighted by the process with which we do it. 3. Techno-wars obscure cultural conflicts, in that Techno-War is predicated on the notion that our vastly superior technology will prevail over even the most ancient, bitter and entrenched rivalries and hostilities. For all of this country's history, Americans have seen technology work for them in terms not only of prosperity but of projecting political power.
Yet this faith sometimes obscures understanding of different cultures and ethnicities and the different ways in which they think. >From Vietnam to Iraq to the Serbs, we seem to fall into this trap again and again, thinking that our vastly superior technology will cause determined peoples to crumble and succumb. The thing is, they often don't.
How much do we really know about this particular ancient struggle, the one in Kosovo, elements of which date back hundreds of years and have defied solution, negotiation, or mediation? 4. The techno-gamble. Techno-wars are politically expedient kind of wars, in which political leaders essentially bet they can use technology to change political outcomes quickly. This, they wager, will happen because the public is both enchanted by the technology and placated by the fact that it's machines, not people, doing the fighting. Techno-Wars are declared abruptly, almost always without national or political referendum, and within minutes, accompanied by dazzling satellite-transmitted pictures of tracer bullets, bomb flashes and sounds of wailing sirens. The belief - also hubris, perhaps - is that they will be over before resistance or skepticism can develop.
Almost everyone involved in the latest Techno-War openly acknowledges that public support would vanish instantly if large numbers of American soldiers were being injured or killed, or if the conflict drags on too long.
Since Vietnam, Americans have had little stomach for sending soldiers off to war. Casualties during military actions and terrorist attacks in Beirut and Somalia prompted the abrupt withdrawal of American troops. Military actions in Haiti, Grenada, and Panama saw massive troops committed to overpowering small and impoverished countries for short periods of time with limited goals. All three resulted in minor American casualties and were over in days or weeks. But they were more traditional military operations, involving the deployment of many ground troops. In Kosova, as in recent military actions against Iraq, the Techno-war is advanced as a means to an end, the primary way in which a conflict or problem is resolved.
The idea that technology is power goes back a long time in America. In "The Rise of American Technology," (Iowa State University Press), Friedrich Klemm writes that modern technology - at the heart of American global power and expansion -- took root in the United States more than anywhere else in the world.
The minute the colonies won independence from England, Klemm, writes, they began the process of technical development and industrialization, especially the steam-ship, the railway and the telegraph, all of which played key roles in the expansion westward.
Americans went on to become the premier inventors, engineers, builders and technologists in the world, from mills to cars and telephones. It was precisely this passion for building technology, writes Klemm, that made America so powerful and prosperous a country.
The computer may yet top all of these creations. Computers are changing the world, and computing, especially networked computing technology is at the heart of the Techno-War. The Internet perhaps reinforces the idea that because we are technologically advanced, we are more powerful than people who aren't. In this Techno-war, digital technology is used to study weather, pinpoint targets, assess damage, launch weapons, rescue downed pilots, knock-out defenses, and otherwise wage a "clean," relatively bloodless war, if you're on our end of it.
But the problem with Techno-Wars is that they don't seem to work, or when they do work, it's in limited ways. The massive bombing of Germany didn't shorten the war or force the Germans to end it. Israel and Great Britain have for years had the technological means to destroy their political adversaries in the Middle East and Ireland, but their superior technology haven't worked.
Techno-wars may be metaphors for hubris about the limits of technology, no matter how dazzling. It is stunning to watch all those Pentagon-arranged pictures of computer-programmed Tomahawk missiles lifting off from B-52's and sailing as much as 500 miles to fly through the doorways and windows of buildings. But they don't seem to be effective at stopping, or even slowing, the conflict and killing taking place hundreds of miles away.
Saddam Hussein has survived several Techno-Wars, emerging even stronger and more enrenched than he was before. He was pushed out of Kuwait not by a Techno-war, but by a pretty conventional one, in which troops and tanks lined up in the desert to push him back to Iraq.
Satellites and computers are able to find terrorists, but can't bring them to justice. Haiti is still an impoverished and repressive mess. (Grenada wasn't big enough to qualify as a Techno-war, more as a police action).
The world seems shocked when even the heads of tiny countries like Serbia defy technology. Watching these hi-tech tapes on TV night after night, there's the eerie but recurring sense that the only way NATO's goals will ever be achieved is if somebody like John Wayne takes a couple of thousand Marines into Belgrade and hauls somebody off to jail. But this solution would involve humans as much as machines. It wouldn't be a "clean" or "painless" Techno-war.
"Increasingly dejected by the inability of their dazzling weapons to bring Slobodan Milosevic to heel and stop the ethnic purge of Kosovo, NATO leaders are struggling to figure out what to do next if the bombing does not work," reported the New York Times on Wednesday.
The answer? More bombing, and bombing closer to urban centers. That means more casualties, and probably, even more resistance.
Techno-wars are powerful metaphors for the limits of and unpredictable nature of technology. - If technology is becoming more precise all the time, the human nature it's supposed to alter is inherently unpredictable. We have what we believe are rational reasons for deploying technology for political or humanitarian purposes. For the targets, the very machinery itself is a rationale for resistance. - Techno-wars are almost never bloodless. Since machines behave in unpredictable and erratic ways, people get killed on both sides. Clouds obscure satellites, planes malfunction and fall. A bomb's control system fails, or a missile goes awry and the same TV that transmits all those hi-tech pictures of precision bombs is suddenly showing dead civilian bodies. The political equation can change in an instant. - Even the most powerful technologies can be evaded by determined and resourceful opponents (the Viet Cong, Saddam Hussein, the Afghan resistance). Different cultures may resist technologically-imposed political solutions imposed from without, no matter how overpowering the technology is.
Technology can't in itself work quickly enough to compensate for poorly defined goals with little public support, unless it is employed so destructively - as in nuclear weapons - that the cure would be worse than the disease.
Put another way, Techno-Wars don't work unless the technology is unleashed to its devastating limits - as in Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- an unthinkable political option in any scenario short of Armageddon. So the irony of technology is that we have enough to destroy Saddam Hussein a million times over, but not without taking a chunk of Baghdad with him, something that the world would reject and no politician wants to do. In an odd sense, the reality is that the more powerful our technology, the less likely we are to use it.
Finally, as the Internet and World Wide Web and related computing technologies spread and grow beyond anyone's expectations, Techno-Wars remind us that technology isn't necessarily as powerful as we like to think it is. There are even bigger forces at work, and they don't care what we think or expect.
"Power is ultimately nature itself," writes technology historian and political scientist Langdon Winner, "released by the inquiries of science and made available by the inventive, organizing capacity of technics. All other sources of political power - wealth, pubic support, personal charisma, social standing, organized interest - are weak by comparison."
Or, put more bluntly in one of the corollaries to Murphy's Laws about technology (No. 5: Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad worse) first put forth in l949, "Mother nature is a bitch." jonkatz@slashdot.org
Wars are never bloodless - anyone who thinks they can make it a useful tool without both intentional and inadvertent killing is deluding themself. I find this article amusing, because it points out most people's ignorance on the purpose and function of airstrikes, as well as the amazing lack of tenacity in the American public to accomplish a goal.
Intensive strategic airstrikes are supposed to hit at the centers of command, control, and supply - relatively big, immobile targets - and in that sense, the NATO bombings in Yugoslavia are turning out to be a textbook example. Deprived of intelligence and logistic support, an opposing ground force can then annihilate them. Examples of this, not pointed out in the article, are the Croatian and Muslim armies in the recent Balkan conflicts, and the US army in the Gulf War, 1991, which were both greatly assisted by US airstrikes. In the latter, the US walked away from routing the world's fifth largest army with barely over a hundred casualties.
While airstrikes can destroy targets of opportunity (small convoys of vehicles, etc) it is virtually impossible to inflict serious damage to a ground force from the air, unless they are dug in as a static defense, such as the Iraqi army in Kuwait. It's the ignorant politicians, knowing nothing about fighting, who make the incredible claims of "bloodless war" and "no civilian casualties".
Something implicitly stated in the article is that somehow the airstrikes "aren't working" and are "a failure". Hello!...it's been little over a week, and we're already judging its effects? The Serbs have been planning and executing their campaign of ethnic cleansing for months, do you want NATO to give up simply because they don't roll over dead for us? Their ground forces are beginning to run short of food and supply, and eventually enough of the Yugoslav Army will be chipped away by airstrikes to make sending a ground force (or even arming the KLA) a viable option. I find it sickening in this something-for-nothing world that someone can plan for the murder and removal of over 2 million people, and bet that the American public doesn't have the stomach or the attention span to stop him. Even worse is that Milosevic is right.
Yugoslavia is to the WEST of Turkey.
The Caspian Sea is to the EAST of Turkey.
Go look at a map, fool. There's no way for a Caspian Sea pipeline to go through Yugoslavia to get to Turkey. The Caspian Sea is on the wrong side of Turkey for that to happen.
See http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/caspian.html for more info on the geography of the Caspian sea oilfields area.
Oh -- Noam Chomsky is going senile. Brilliant linguist, nice person, but he keeps thinking up bizarre things like oil pipelines that somehow skip over Turkey to get to Yugoslavia, then turn around and go back into Turkey. (huh? doesn't make sense? Now you get it!). Or else he's just doing like Ed Muth, and making it all up as he goes along. Either way, his web site is NOT providing facts, but, rather, is providing bizarre conspiracy theories similar to the right wing sites with their black helicopters baloney. Except that Noam is a left-wing conspiracy freak. Same difference.
-- Eric
Send mail here if you want to reach me.
I was in Desert Storm. Putting all the crap about oil a side. We were there to release Kuwait from the control of Iraq. I can remember the month of bombings. It was very very effective at removing the fight from Iraq ground troops.
Don't forget that Iraq would have been alot longer if we did not "soften" them up with Air attacks.
Still in the end it took Ground troops. Until the ground troops went in Kuwait was still being looted. No matter how many bombs fell. I can remeber being at the Kuwait international airport. The Marines were still running into small pockets of resistance.
War has changed alot since WW2. Still the basic's have not changed.
1. You have to degrade there supply's.
2. Remove there ablity to move supply's to there troops.
3. Remove there ablity to communicate with there own troops.
4. Control the sky's over the conflict.
5. Ground troops must take and hold the land.
I really don't like to see Current conflicts compared to Vetnam. I see the biggest difference being that fact that we have a all volenter army. These soldiers are professinals at what they do. They are trained and equiped to carry out the will of our nation. The also KNOW THE REAL DEAL. They know that they will have to fight. They know that they may have to die. The accepted that when they joined. They have been reminded ever since they first showed up for Basic Training. The american public may want to believe in a new world where our toys will do the fighting. but the Military stills knows that People will have to sacrifice there lives. The Infantry knows that they are the final word when it comes to winning a armed conflict.
Kuwait was not free till Coalition troops could hold the land. In a way it is sick to kill with out having to get your hands dirty. Getting your hands dirty is the only way to understand the sacrifice.
Independance for Kosovo now!
Last one in jail is a fascist.
The problem with cyberwarfare is that it isn't intended to win a war.
If the US had really wanted Saddam dead, a single gunman could have pulled it off. If we wanted Milosovec dead, once again, a single gunman could do the job.
The reason killing those men isn't an objective is because they are more symptom than cause. Kill Saddam, and someone will step up to take his place. The same for Milosovec. It's the cultures themselves that are the cause of the problem, and you can't change that with any sort of warfare or force.
For example, Isrial vs. PLO. You'll notice that once the leaders were nearly brought together for a peace agreement, we saw an asassination and a new hard line leader elected. The culture as a whole did not WANT peace. Kill the 'bad guy' and the culture will find a new one.
In other cases, it's not so much that the culture wants conflict, but that the society has an innate weakness that allows such leaders to come into power. Get rid of the leader, and as often as not, another will surface.
Those are HARD problems, and most polititions like to stay away from hard problems.
The reason we're suddenly seeing these problems is that the Soviet Union was supressing all of this by force before. As soon as the force was removed, the fundamental problem reemerged with a vengance.
Cyberwarfare IS good for the first 80% of winning a war. That last 20% is the problem. The last 20% is the part where tanks and infantry must go door to door supressing the enemy. It isn't flashy, or soundbite friendly. It is dangerous for the troops. That's probably why we keep skipping that part and wondering why nothing fundamental changed.
Recently the United States has been really big on using the Diplomacy of Violence. Essentially, this amounts as violence from afar to acheive political goals. Usually this is done with planes or missiles and no men on the ground. Components of Katz's techo-war.
But there is a problem with such a situation. Diplomacy of Violence only works if dealing with a rational actor on the other end. If the person with whom they are trying to "negotiate" with is able to weigh the costs and benefits of a situation, then it will work.
But the problem lies in the fact that Milosovic and Hussein are not rational actors. Both of them suffer to a degree from the same problem Hitler did. Hitler was fanatical about the destruction of the Soviet people. So much so that he overlooked many common military procedures and diverted troops to what ended up as a disastrous operation (the whole thing about not bringing winter clothes when going to Moscow was a bad idea to).
Milosovic suffers from the same problem. He is a fanatical nationalist determined to see an ethnically pure Serbian state, and is willing to stop at no cost in order to acheive this. That is why the current Diplomacy of Violence will not work. All it has done since bombing began was speed up the clensing process and increase the Serbian resolve to continue.
I'm not trying to say one way or another what I think about the hurrent conflict, as that is irrevelent to the message of this post. What I'm trying to say is that the techno-war will inevitably fail against non-rational actors.
My Slashdot account is old enough to drink...
Pretty obvious why NATO troops need to be on the ground there. I give it 2 weeks tops.
--
As long as each individual is facing the TV tube alone, formal freedom poses no threat to privilege.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
Chechnya is way way East.
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As long as each individual is facing the TV tube alone, formal freedom poses no threat to privilege.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao
Yeah, we are bullying Serbia. What do we want from them? To stop persecuting the Kosovar Albanians. So we're bullying a bully, because force is the only thing he'll understand.
I don't care for the way Clinton and the other NATO leaders are executing the war either. I guess that's the price you pay for living in a society where civilians, not the military, call the shots. But I think the ideas behind our actions are well meaning, at least.
I'm not really sure why you are opposed. I'm not saying there *aren't* legit reasons to be opposed, but you just seem to be saying that it's too easy or something.
You made a couple...interesting remarks there.
;)
"I do wish Greenspan worried less about inflation and more about jobs."
Last I check, enemployment was at a 29-year low in the States.
"what's so great about the constitution?"
Uhh, besides being the basis for most other western governments for the last 200 years, nothing, I guess.
The quote here is from PJ O'Rourke's book "All the Trouble in the World" (1994), which I strongly recommend. His politics are not my cup of tea but PJ, when he writes on things political, can make things astonishingly clear and funny, too. His new book, "Eat the Rich" is very funny, too.
....War doesn't work anymore. Rape and slaughter may get Serbia on the evening news, but, from the point of view of becoming major players upon the international stage, Serbs would be better off selling Yugos."
"The way Tito kept Yugoslavs from killing each other was he did it for them. This is the same technique used by the Romans, Byzantines, Ottomans, Austro-Hungarians, Nazi Germans, and everyone else who's had the misfortune to rule the Balkans. The locals have to be provided
with an ample supply of new grievances, otherwise old grievances come to the fore. In Tito's case, one of the old grievances was Tito.
Although Tito himself was of mixed Croat/Slovene/son-of-a-bitch background, his World War II Partisan troops were mostly Serbs. In 1946, 100,000 anti-Tito Croat refugees were handed over to Tito by the ever-admirable British. Tito's partisans then killed something between 40,000 and all of them, with the usual number of women, children, and old people included. Of course, the Partisans didn't do this for a lark. The Croats, under raving nationalist Ante Pavelic, had established a Nazi puppet state in 1941 and killed as many as 350,000 Serbs.........
Who Hates Who, and Why...
The Christians hate the Muslims because Cristians were peons under the Ottomans. The Muslims hate the Christians because Muslims were pissants under the Communists. The Croats hate the Serbs for collaborating with the Communists the same way the Serbs hate the Croats for collaborating with the Nazis, and now the Bosnians hate the Montnegrins for collaborating with the Serbs. The Serbs hate the Albanians for going to Yugoslavia. Everybody hates the Serbs because there are more of them than anybody else to hate and because when Yugoslavia was created in 1918 (with the help of know-it-all American President Woodrow Wilson), the Serbs grabbed control of the govenment and army and haven't let go yet...
It's hard to come back from the Balkans and not sound like a Pete Seeger song. Even those of us who are savagely opposed to pacifism are tempted to grab the Yugoslavs by their fashionably padded shoulders and give them nonviolent what-for: "Even if you win, you ASSHOLES, all you've got is YUGOSLAVIA ! It's not like you're invading France or something."
(For promoting nationalism)
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
The only thing that has even kept peace in the Balkans has been occupation, plain and simple. The Ottomans kept an iron-fisted peace, as did the Austrians after them, albeit a bit more gently. Probably the US occupying the Balkans would be a bad idea; and as soon as our military presence disappears, they will go back to slaughtering each other.
The real problem is that these cultures simply hate each other. They are the same ethnicity; most people do not realize this. The bosnians, serbs and croats are all the same people, separated by culture - religeon, language ...
The way to fix this is not with bombs, but with televisions. We need to put a TV in every Balkan home and pipe in M-TV. This will eradicate their cultures, religeon and everything else along with it, turn their populations in drooling, babbling idiots, and hence fix the problem. Talk about techno-war. Hmphhh!
support gun control: take guns from cops
I have seen nothing from the US during my life except these "beat up the little guy and tell him what to do" skirmishes my whole life. No longer do we fight honorable wars like WWII - where we actually had a reason to fight (and even give our lives) to protect ourselves. Instead we behave like the mean kid on the block chasing little kids around with an electric cattle prod stolen from daddy. And laughing because they can't do anything to us. I don't like it. I don't like this whole NATO/Big Brother thing either. Read this for more info (The SmallBrain "mammals" will say it is anti-government. LargeBrained people will realize that it is pro-constitution)
I'm sure I'll get power-flamed for a lot of this. I love my country, but I fear my government. I'm just not really understanding the need for all these wimp-wars of the last 20 years. Why don't we just live our lives. If someone wants to be stupid enough to come mess with the US, then we can wallop them, but until then we should just be nice. This is more like walking around saying "I bet you can't kick MY ass!" - That's all fun until someone comes along that CAN. Every large empire (which is pretty much what the US has become) has behaved the same way. Now there is no Greek, Roman, English, empires. Someone finally kicked the arrogance out of them. We need to use our magic for good, not evil.
That is all I've got to say about that for now.
One historical example come to mind: WW1: In what was probably the greatest demonstration of skill-at-arms ever, Sgt. Alvin York, US Army, captured an entire German machinegun battalion. He did this alone, armed with a five-shot rifle and a seven-shot pistol.
At the time, the machinegun was the "ultimate weapon". It commanded the terrain for 500 yards, killing all in its path. The machinegun was the primary reason that WW1 was reduced to "trench warfare"--everyone was scared of 'em!
Today's "wonder weapons" are no different. A smart bomb still isn't smart enough to kill one rifleman. And it's the still the rifleman that carries the day.
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Earth first? Oooh, and I was thinking of paying the rent.
"14 - They have made instruments not backed by gold or silver legal tender for the payment of debts, and illegally allowed the Federal Reserve, a privately owned corporation, to control the money and credit system of the country without being properly owned or controlled by the People."
Okay, so some of it is a little wacky, Klom. You've got to admit that it would be a little tough to run our economy on a gold standard. Besides, gold's objective value is nearly as much an illusion as that of paper.
As for the Federal Reserve, I don't know if I'd go so far as to say they are a #private# bank...more like an independent one--albeit a perhaps-too-powerful-one. I do wish Greenspan worried less about inflation and more about jobs.
As for the "it's pro-constitution" part, what's so great about the constitution? It's a 200-year-old document primarily obsessed with preventing us from crowning a king in the George III style. I'm not sure why the militia crowd (and I'm NOT throwing you in there with them) are always so fanatical about the constitution; it's almost a religious symbol to them.
Fascintating stuff nonetheless. It's got something for everyone--a mix of Libertarian, Leftist, and even right-wing-black-helicopters-style griping about the feds. Most interesting, of course, is the stuff about corporations...Thanks for posting it.
\
On "MarketPlace" last night, Robert Reich had a very similar commentary. He delineated the two great forces at work in the world as Technology and Tribalism. And made the same point, that Tribalism almost always can overpower or outlast Technology. It's even true in our own history. The American Revolution was won by our 'tribe' despite the British having better technology.
Jim Wildman jim@rossberry.com
Very good, but the technology is the wrong aspect to focus on - at least, in my opinion. The fact that this is a Clean War, where we attempt to win without spending anything but money (no lives), is why we will lose. Unless the nation leading the assault really wants to win, they'll lose.
Before the bombing started, I read an interesting Zogby poll of voting americans.
We don't, as a population, know where the nation is let alone the political details of the reasons for the coflict.
We wanted to win in the two Great Wars, in Korea, and in the Gulf. We wanted out in Vietnam. And in Kosovo, the war has been so thoroughly cleaned that we don't know why we're there or where we are.
We can't possibly win this. I am almost ashamed to be an American.
Almost.
If something is to be done, let it be done well. We've seen this before. Khaddafi was one of the first that I can recall (then again I'm a young pup). We bombed. He shut up (some) but hey, he's still there. Reagan isn't. Saddam? Still there, because we're not willing, as a country, to accept the basic fact of any war. People die. There is no bloodless victory in war, that I can see. There can be bloodless battles, but never a true victory. Desert (Foo) had very low casualties, but they didn't suceed either, truly. We've bombed Serbia before, it's done drek. All it does is teaches those bombed where the limits are. Milosovic did a marvelous job tapdancing around NATO demands while building up. He got enough troops, and wham, over the border and thanks for playing. The Serbs obviously think that sacrificing men to the war is worth it. We don't. At this point, no technology in the world can help, if the will to victory isn't there. And is isn't, and it's not likely to be. Every time we send troops in, the opponent just has to look to Somalia or Beiruit to see examples of how to kick the Yankee Imperialist Dogs out with minimal effort.
Unfortunately, "techno war" is something we're going to be needing more and more.
I've only recently left the U.S. Army (I was a paratrooper/signal geek). The impression I walk away with having spent my four years either in Korea or Fort Bragg, two assignments where a solider ought to feel most confident that he's surrounded by the best the conventional military can offer, is that the will and competence for a ground war fought between conventional forces simply aren't there.
People within the military will chase their tails about this forever, figuring out whether to blame what they consider less ability on the part of small unit leaders to discipline their troops, or too much civilian oversight, or a lower quality recruit pool.
Whatever the reason, the last twenty years have taught the military lessons that probably ought to be more traumatic than Vietnam was. For instance:
And to get merely anecdotal, numerous tales from fellow soldiers who were involved in several of the conflicts I mentioned above, including one story of a signal troop who, when faced with a possible overrun situation in Somalia, dropped the clip from his weapon and said "f*ck this, I can't."
I don't think we have the will to fight on the ground, and haven't for some time. In fact, we really don't have the will to fight at all.
It's absurd, while we're on this, to claim that these "techno wars" are "bloodless" anyhow. Everyone but the United States has been willing to admit that the "collateral damage" to the Iraqi infrastructure caused horrible devastation, privation, and loss of life among noncombatants. Unfortunately, the prevailing political climate in the United States has rendered discussion of such things nearly treasonous. Why? Because a thoughtful person realizes that discussion about this issue requires admission of some things:
- We've probably been lied to by the people we're "supposed" to trust at some point along the way, and have most likely identified and asserted as "truth" some of the lies we've been told
- We don't possess the means to figure that out for ourselves nearly as easily as we can merely aquiesce and go along with what we're being told, and...
- We're well aware that regardless of our own ability to somehow tease the truth out of a "news" apparatus more concerned with profit and repsectability, there's little chance we can count on our neighbors to be the same way.
Knowledge, in this case, is a losing proposition. Asserting your perception of the truth invites the derision and abuse of anointed experts who have a stake in making sure we all remain content with our perception. Admitting that you've been systematically deceived requires character.In a lot of ways, the other front in a techno war is the civilian population on whose behalf the war is being fought. The enemy has to be mastered on the plane of force, and the home front has to be bombed into submission epistemologically.
Lots of luck to all of us.
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mphall@cstone.nospam.net
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mphall@cstone.nospam.net
"A horse laugh is worth a thousand syllogisms"
It's important to make a point about public support with regard to the so-called techno-war. In World War II, it was pretty easy to convince the American public that going to war in Europe was in the national best interest. The allies had smart leaders, smart politicians and luckily, both sides of the conflict agreed to fight a conventional war. (That is until the Japanese became involved.) We viewed WWII as both a mission of humanitarianism, and of reigning in a dictator bent on "world domination." This is something that the "public" was able to grasp and support.
The war in Korea was the same in that it remained conventional, the war effort had public support (more support than WWII at least at first) and the US goals in Korea were straightforward. The media as we know it today was taking its first baby-steps in war coverage and was able to feed the pentagon what it needed to keep support back home.
Vietnam was the first time that the US was missing the key ingredients for a successful war. Very little public support (at any time during the conflict and less so towards the end, of course.) We had military leaders on our side who, while knowledgeable in conventional war, couldn't keep up with the VC because the VC didn't play by the rules of conventional warfare. Our politicians back home were missing the last key ingredient...salesmanship. They could not sell the war to the American People because what we were fighting for was lost in translation (or was never clear to the US in the first place) and every day on National TV we could see our sons dying in the rice paddies.
With the event of the Gulf War, the leaders in Washington tried to learn from the mistakes of Vietnam and instead of trying to teach us why it was important to stop Saddam Hussein, told us that "We don't need public opinion to start fighting, because we can show the American People that US lives are not at stake." The new weapons capabilities, the bright flashing lights and pretty colors on our TV's convinced the People of that.
But we again suffered from a lack of clear objectives (beyond the liberation of Kuwait and protection of our allies in the region.)
In the balkans, we've got almost the same problems as we did in Vietnam and in the Gulf war. The public doesn't understand the humanitarian conflict (and hasn't been told if this is reason enough to war against the Serbs.) It doesn't know where the conflict is taking place, and the leaders in Washington and Nato can't tell us what are objectives are. It's not like the US and Nato gets involved every time one ethnic group tries to wipe out another one. Just look at Rawanda, the only reason that we don't look pathetic as a result of that conflict was that the American people didn't see the bodies of dead Rawandans on national TV every night.
Nato and the US have relied on the the Air/Techno war as the first action to take in conflict. They almost seem to say "We don't know what we're up against, how long we can expect to fight, or for what outcome we're fighting. But its important to get the ball rolling, (or bomb dropping) just so we appear to be in control."
I wish that it was easier for US citizens to get real information on the conflict before we start dropping bombs on people. Of course that's fanciful thinking... it's way easier to turn on the TV and let someone else tell us what to think.
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ps. I like Jon Katz.
So what if its digital. Analog works fine, too. In some cases, analog is even better than digital, and its usually cheaper.
For instance, active noise cancellation was achived during World War II using analog electronics and worked quite well. In fact, it was so simple, people refused to belive it would work. Today, active noise cancellation can be done digitally, but it requires A/D conveters, D/A converters, and either a complex controlling circut or a microcontroller (plenty complex, too). But since analog is simpler and works just fine . .
Digital stuffs are just tools to solve a problem. Use them where they work well. Do NOT insist digital stuff be used everywhere because digital stuffs are not inherently better at all tasks.
"Luncheon meats make the sawdust in your stomach explode."
Much of what JonKatz says is true. Particularly that you cannot overthrow a government by air strikes alone.
One thing is questionable, the reference to elements of this conflict going back hundreds of years. It's true that the Serbs and Albanians have lived in the space for hundreds of years, but the conflicts are largely modern. 19th and early 20th century saw a few problems, but more recently things were quiet (remember that Kosovo had constitional autonomy).
My main criticism is that this was mostly a sociology of war piece, and not a terribly good one because he kept trying to work technology into it.
I would strongly suggest reading 'The Art of War' by Sun Tzu. Especially the part about "Fire Attacks". It has been claimed that in every war the winning side used the principles set in that text. Corralaries can be drawn to today's technologies and (my understanding of it is that) Fire Attacks generally corrolate most closely to air wars. They could further likened to the techno wars that are spoken of here. A key point that Sun Tzu makes is that if you do not know your enemies limits than you will not be able to win the war. In the case of Kosovo I don't think the US quite understands what the Serbs are willing to do and why they are willing to do it.
Here's a link to the "Art of War". There are others out there if you search for them.
From reading initial comments, it seems as if people are getting a little bit more out of this than the average Katz piece. That's good. However, I'm not getting more out of it, because I gave up after the second time I saw a number embedded in the middle of a paragraph.
A public plea to Mr. Katz: You're posting hypertext here. You should take advantage of the things this medium lets you do, like make automagically numbered lists (<ol type="1">), and embed links into your text (for example, why wasn't the book title from ISU Press linked to Amazon.com, or ISU press? Why isn't your email address at the bottom of the article a link?)
Please try to understand: For myself and many others, your facility with this medium has a direct and substantial impact on your credibility. This is directly analogous to how people react to a poorly editted essay in Old Media.
I understand that you're quite busy with family and career, and that picking up HTML might not be a priority. I understand, and I'd like to offer my services. Send me a draft of your forthcoming posts, and I'll mark it up. No charge. I think you've got some interesting things to say, but I (and others) aren't getting to see them, because you're doing the New Media equivalent of printing first drafts on low quality paper, with cheap ink, in a cruddy font, with no copy-editting.
john.
GeneHack {--(bioinfo*linux*opinion)
I disagree, Milosovic is nothing if not rational. Here's the equation:
Choice 1: Give up Kosovo peacefully, the only alternative the U.S. will accept.
Choice 2: Fight, and maybe keep Kosovo, or at least part of it, and even if you lose you kill some ethnic Albanians and gain the support of your people who even if they do not particularly like you, like being bombed even less.
Now, keeping in mind that Kosovo happens to contain some sites that are as holy to Serbs as the Alamo is to Texans (and for the same reasons) what do you, as a rational leader, do?
You fight. It's a no-lose proposition.
There was an excellent article on the BBC news site before the bombing started that spelled out what was going to happen, and so far it has been 100% right.
Don't take this post as an endorsement in any way of the Serbian atrocities, but over the last 100 years, all sides in Yugoslavia have been guilty of the same things. Definitely not worth my bombing money.
Comparing Saddam Hussein to the VietCong and the Afghan resistance movement is rather insulting, at least to the Afghans and the VC. Katz has lumped a third-rate military leader who happens to have nine lives, a brilliant political mind, and one hell of a PR machine together with the masters of modern guerilla warfare. The only basis for comparison between either of these guerilla fighters and Saddam is that all of them go into hiding when the missles start flying. It's just that the VC and the Afghans tend to come out shooting...
We defeated (I don't know if that's quite the right word to use, since "defeated" nations don't tend to come back posing and posturing about how they're going to kick your ass if you come back) Iraq in ground combat without any trouble, and with very few casualties. We did not have the same luck with the Germans, and I don't think anyone wants to get involved with Vietnam again. Heck, ask the Russians how they like dealing with Afghanistan, and see how it stacks up to anyone's experience in Iraq.
The article is an interesting read, but as soon as JK starts trying to make historical or cultural analogies, he starts sounding like an idiot. My advice: stick to what you know!
"Who is more foolish, the fool, or the fool who follows him?" -- Obi-Wan Kenobi
Milosovic is completely rational, he is just using a differedt value system than we do. In his terms the peace terms ammounted to "commit sucide or we will kill you". If he accepts he will be out of power, and possibly dead, very quickly. If he rejects the peace offer his army will be attacked, damaged, but probably not destroyed. By being openly against NATO he is out from under a number of restrictions and can possibly emirge much better off. Given this kind of decision table it is a no brainer. The fact his country gets trashed in the process is acceptable overhead.