PBS Frontline aired an excellent program today titled The War Briefing, which explores the foreign policy nightmare America's next president will face in Afghanistan and Pakistan. You can watch the entire program online on the PBS website.
The program is excellent in its own right, and a good primer on Afghanistan and Pakistan. I also enjoyed seeing interviews with some key players in our country's most important strategic debates. To name a few:
Vali Nasr is the author of The Shia Revival, one of the best books available explaining Sunni-Shiite relations.
Michael Scheuer had a career with the CIA, where he eventually headed the Bin Laden Issue Station. He has written a series of provocative books blasting US counterterrorism efforts, such as Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror.
David Kilcullen and John Nagl are counterinsurgency experts who advised General Petraeus and are architects of the counterinsurgency strategy successfully employed in Iraq. Gen. Jack Keane is a former Army Vice Chief of Staff who, according to Bob Woodward, used a back-channel relationship with the President to help implement the Surge.
The program also includes chilling footage with troops on the ground, showing the intensity and danger of "the forgotten war" in Afghanistan. It is a worthy tribute to their service.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Monday, October 13, 2008
Crowdsourcing Security
Two Tales of Crowdsourcing
The book Wikinomics begins with a story about Rob McEwen, CEO of Goldcorp Inc. In 1999 the small goldmining firm was threatened by a host of problems; if it did not find substantial new gold deposits, its mine would likely close and bring the company down. The company's geologists had reason to believe their property was brimming with further gold deposits--up to thirty times their current production--but the geologists struggled to provide specifics. The company was at an impasse.
In March of 2000, McEwan did something that blew apart traditional business models and saved his company: he put all his company's proprietary geological data on the Internet for public viewing and announced the "Goldcorp Challenge" with $575,000 of prize money for locating new gold deposits. He crowdsourced the problem to the public.
The authors write, "Within weeks, submissions from around the world came flooding in to Goldcorp headquarters. As expected, geologists got involved. But entries came from surprising sources, including graduate students, consultants, mathematicians, and military officers, all seeking a piece of the action. 'We had applied math, advanced physics, intelligent systems, computer graphics, and organic solutions to inorganic problems. There were capabilities I had never seen before in thh industry,' says McEwen."
The authors conclude, "Today Goldcorp is reaping the fruits of its open source approach to exploration. Not only did the contest yield copious quantities of gold, it catapulted his underperforming $100 million company into a $9 billion juggernaut while transforming a backward mining site in Northern Ontario into one of the most innovative and profitable properties in the industry.
Second anecdote: a couple weeks ago, former intelligence analyst Matthew Burton wrote about the Jim Gray Rescue Effort. I quote from Burton's article:
Jim Gray was a database pioneer based in San Francisco. He disappeared while sailing in the Bay area last January. He was never found.
But his friends, many of whom were Silicon Valley magnates, did their best to try. One of these friends retasked DigitalGlobe imagery satellites to shoot fresh photos over 3,500 square miles of sea. The result was 1400 gigantic images. So coders automatically split the images up into 560,000 smaller ones that could be easily reviewed; someone else contributed a computer program that automatically sharpened all of the images.
Now that they had over a half million pictures, they needed a way to solicit volunteers to look at them. Amazon.com already had a ready-made solution, so the images were posted on a special page that let virtual volunteers cull through these images in search of Gray's sailboat. 12,000 volunteers reviewed all 560,000 images three times each.
All of that happened in three days. They didn't find Gray's sailboat. But it was the largest search party in history, on top of being simply amazing.
The Web's speed and freedom made it possible. Had this job been given to an organization with a closed network, this never would have happened.
What is Crowdsourcing?
Wikipedia says, "Crowdsourcing is a neologism for the act of taking a task traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people, in the form of an open call."
Several good books deal with the subject: Wikinomics by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams,
The Starfish and the Spider by Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom, and Crowdsourcing by Jeff Howe, to name a few.
Crowdsourcing, and its related phenomena, are increasingly important parts of our lives. The Internet itself is the most foundational example. Nobody "runs" the Internet; rather, it is the cumulative result of the innovation and creativity of hundreds of millions of users around the world. Another example is "Open Source" programming, which has been a crucial part of the software development industry for years; the computer operating system Linux, developed by the open source community, is the classic example. Wikipedia is a dynamic encyclopedia, with content created entirely by users. Second Life is a 3D virtual world with restaurants, nightclubs, islands, and more created entirely by the users who reside and play there. Several open source textbook projects exist. A lively debate is underway about the value of open source in the intelligence community. Grey Goose is one open source intelligent effort currently underway.
I could write at length about the value and dynamics of crowdsourcing, but I'll leave it to the authors of the books mentioned above. Suffice it to say, I believe crowdsourcing is one of the most important and revolutionary trends in today's world. It has already shown its power to create products that traditional hierarchical organizations never could.
The Value of Crowdsourcing Security
I don't know the exact length of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, but a few minutes with Google Earth suggests it's in the vicinity of 1200 miles. No matter. The important thing is that it is too long, and too treacherous, for scarce US troops to adequately patrol on foot. ISR aircraft like Predators can help, but the US simply does not have enough aircraft, pilots, or intelligence analysts to match the scale of the problem. As a result, insurgents have crossed this border at will, greatly complicating efforts to bring peace to Afghanistan.
Now imagine a thought experiment. I am not advocating a specific suggestion here, just trying to prove a point. Recall the power, flexibility, and scale of the Jim Gray search. What can we learn?
Imagine the US erected a thirty-foot pole every mile or so on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, with a swiveling video camera, solar panel, and satellite Internet connection mounted on top. Now imagine all of these videos feeds were accessible on the Internet, live, perhaps through an interface like Google Earth. Click the camera you want, and any American--or Korean, or Frenchman for that matter--could watch a live stretch of Afghanistan. Over the Internet, users could rotate or zoom each camera. The technology isn't cosmic; in fact, some armchair hunters already use similar systems to remotely hunt deer hundreds of miles away. Compared with one state-of-the-art aircraft, the cost of the entire project would be relatively cheap.
Now wrap the thing up in a basic collaborative workspace. Have real-time statistics, showing which cameras are being manned and which aren't. Let multiple users viewing the same camera chat with each other. Create spaces where self-organizing communities of armchair intelligence analysts can recruit members, discuss ideas, or analyze suspicious snapshots. Finally, give the whole project legitimate channels to interface with the US military. When a community monitoring a camera sees something suspicious--those guys lugging an SA-14 through the mountains, for example--they should have a way of reporting the event to a designated Intelligence cell that can review the event, sift the wheat from the chaff, and report useful intelligence up the chain. The military would do the job of acting on whatever intelligence does come up. If it's conducting an operation near the border, or has other legitimate OPSEC needs, it could simply black out portions of the camera grid.
Now that the infrastructure is in place for crowd-sourced surveillance, you need to promote and incentivize it. You'll find hordes of geospatial enthusiasts on the Internet, who spend hours searching Google Earth for quirks like plane crashes or airliners in flight. How about encouraging them to participate? Why not ask the moms and dads, brothers and sisters, of our servicemen if they want to give an hour or two each week to do important work, from their own living rooms, that will help Johnnie in Afghanistan? If the average American knew they could play a concrete role in helping our aims in Afghanistan or Iraq, I think thousands would step up. Incentives could help, too. The most active users and communities could rack up merits for their work, much like soldiers accrue medals. Maybe top users could be recognized at military or intelligence conferences. Who knows.
With some good brainstorming, I'm sure we could find ways to apply this kind of methodology in urban environments as well. Think back to Baghdad in 2005-2006; terrified Iraqis in huddled in their homes while thugs and criminals butchered each other in the streets, and scarce American troops tried to keep peace. Every Iraqi citizen had a vested interest in Baghdad's security, but few could do anything to contribute. Are there ways to turn these average Iraqis from helpless victims into active defenders of their own security? I suppose one could argue that the rise of the Sons of Iraq was exactly that.
Again, I am not necessarily advocating a specific solution. But I am trying to advocate thinking outside of the box. The military is a rigid hierarchical organization, with a strong organizational tendency to overclassify information in the name of OPSEC. But it should take a lesson from Goldcorp. In today's world, relaxing our stranglehold on information--if done appropriately--can bring enormous benefits. Crowdsourcing opens up a vast pool of talent and labor that is dynamic, responsive, and creative. The military should look for suitable ways to integrate this power into its culture.
The book Wikinomics begins with a story about Rob McEwen, CEO of Goldcorp Inc. In 1999 the small goldmining firm was threatened by a host of problems; if it did not find substantial new gold deposits, its mine would likely close and bring the company down. The company's geologists had reason to believe their property was brimming with further gold deposits--up to thirty times their current production--but the geologists struggled to provide specifics. The company was at an impasse.
In March of 2000, McEwan did something that blew apart traditional business models and saved his company: he put all his company's proprietary geological data on the Internet for public viewing and announced the "Goldcorp Challenge" with $575,000 of prize money for locating new gold deposits. He crowdsourced the problem to the public.
The authors write, "Within weeks, submissions from around the world came flooding in to Goldcorp headquarters. As expected, geologists got involved. But entries came from surprising sources, including graduate students, consultants, mathematicians, and military officers, all seeking a piece of the action. 'We had applied math, advanced physics, intelligent systems, computer graphics, and organic solutions to inorganic problems. There were capabilities I had never seen before in thh industry,' says McEwen."
The authors conclude, "Today Goldcorp is reaping the fruits of its open source approach to exploration. Not only did the contest yield copious quantities of gold, it catapulted his underperforming $100 million company into a $9 billion juggernaut while transforming a backward mining site in Northern Ontario into one of the most innovative and profitable properties in the industry.
Second anecdote: a couple weeks ago, former intelligence analyst Matthew Burton wrote about the Jim Gray Rescue Effort. I quote from Burton's article:
Jim Gray was a database pioneer based in San Francisco. He disappeared while sailing in the Bay area last January. He was never found.
But his friends, many of whom were Silicon Valley magnates, did their best to try. One of these friends retasked DigitalGlobe imagery satellites to shoot fresh photos over 3,500 square miles of sea. The result was 1400 gigantic images. So coders automatically split the images up into 560,000 smaller ones that could be easily reviewed; someone else contributed a computer program that automatically sharpened all of the images.
Now that they had over a half million pictures, they needed a way to solicit volunteers to look at them. Amazon.com already had a ready-made solution, so the images were posted on a special page that let virtual volunteers cull through these images in search of Gray's sailboat. 12,000 volunteers reviewed all 560,000 images three times each.
All of that happened in three days. They didn't find Gray's sailboat. But it was the largest search party in history, on top of being simply amazing.
The Web's speed and freedom made it possible. Had this job been given to an organization with a closed network, this never would have happened.
What is Crowdsourcing?
Wikipedia says, "Crowdsourcing is a neologism for the act of taking a task traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people, in the form of an open call."
Several good books deal with the subject: Wikinomics by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams,
The Starfish and the Spider by Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom, and Crowdsourcing by Jeff Howe, to name a few.
Crowdsourcing, and its related phenomena, are increasingly important parts of our lives. The Internet itself is the most foundational example. Nobody "runs" the Internet; rather, it is the cumulative result of the innovation and creativity of hundreds of millions of users around the world. Another example is "Open Source" programming, which has been a crucial part of the software development industry for years; the computer operating system Linux, developed by the open source community, is the classic example. Wikipedia is a dynamic encyclopedia, with content created entirely by users. Second Life is a 3D virtual world with restaurants, nightclubs, islands, and more created entirely by the users who reside and play there. Several open source textbook projects exist. A lively debate is underway about the value of open source in the intelligence community. Grey Goose is one open source intelligent effort currently underway.
I could write at length about the value and dynamics of crowdsourcing, but I'll leave it to the authors of the books mentioned above. Suffice it to say, I believe crowdsourcing is one of the most important and revolutionary trends in today's world. It has already shown its power to create products that traditional hierarchical organizations never could.
The Value of Crowdsourcing Security
I don't know the exact length of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, but a few minutes with Google Earth suggests it's in the vicinity of 1200 miles. No matter. The important thing is that it is too long, and too treacherous, for scarce US troops to adequately patrol on foot. ISR aircraft like Predators can help, but the US simply does not have enough aircraft, pilots, or intelligence analysts to match the scale of the problem. As a result, insurgents have crossed this border at will, greatly complicating efforts to bring peace to Afghanistan.
Now imagine a thought experiment. I am not advocating a specific suggestion here, just trying to prove a point. Recall the power, flexibility, and scale of the Jim Gray search. What can we learn?
Imagine the US erected a thirty-foot pole every mile or so on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, with a swiveling video camera, solar panel, and satellite Internet connection mounted on top. Now imagine all of these videos feeds were accessible on the Internet, live, perhaps through an interface like Google Earth. Click the camera you want, and any American--or Korean, or Frenchman for that matter--could watch a live stretch of Afghanistan. Over the Internet, users could rotate or zoom each camera. The technology isn't cosmic; in fact, some armchair hunters already use similar systems to remotely hunt deer hundreds of miles away. Compared with one state-of-the-art aircraft, the cost of the entire project would be relatively cheap.
Now wrap the thing up in a basic collaborative workspace. Have real-time statistics, showing which cameras are being manned and which aren't. Let multiple users viewing the same camera chat with each other. Create spaces where self-organizing communities of armchair intelligence analysts can recruit members, discuss ideas, or analyze suspicious snapshots. Finally, give the whole project legitimate channels to interface with the US military. When a community monitoring a camera sees something suspicious--those guys lugging an SA-14 through the mountains, for example--they should have a way of reporting the event to a designated Intelligence cell that can review the event, sift the wheat from the chaff, and report useful intelligence up the chain. The military would do the job of acting on whatever intelligence does come up. If it's conducting an operation near the border, or has other legitimate OPSEC needs, it could simply black out portions of the camera grid.
Now that the infrastructure is in place for crowd-sourced surveillance, you need to promote and incentivize it. You'll find hordes of geospatial enthusiasts on the Internet, who spend hours searching Google Earth for quirks like plane crashes or airliners in flight. How about encouraging them to participate? Why not ask the moms and dads, brothers and sisters, of our servicemen if they want to give an hour or two each week to do important work, from their own living rooms, that will help Johnnie in Afghanistan? If the average American knew they could play a concrete role in helping our aims in Afghanistan or Iraq, I think thousands would step up. Incentives could help, too. The most active users and communities could rack up merits for their work, much like soldiers accrue medals. Maybe top users could be recognized at military or intelligence conferences. Who knows.
With some good brainstorming, I'm sure we could find ways to apply this kind of methodology in urban environments as well. Think back to Baghdad in 2005-2006; terrified Iraqis in huddled in their homes while thugs and criminals butchered each other in the streets, and scarce American troops tried to keep peace. Every Iraqi citizen had a vested interest in Baghdad's security, but few could do anything to contribute. Are there ways to turn these average Iraqis from helpless victims into active defenders of their own security? I suppose one could argue that the rise of the Sons of Iraq was exactly that.
Again, I am not necessarily advocating a specific solution. But I am trying to advocate thinking outside of the box. The military is a rigid hierarchical organization, with a strong organizational tendency to overclassify information in the name of OPSEC. But it should take a lesson from Goldcorp. In today's world, relaxing our stranglehold on information--if done appropriately--can bring enormous benefits. Crowdsourcing opens up a vast pool of talent and labor that is dynamic, responsive, and creative. The military should look for suitable ways to integrate this power into its culture.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
FM 3.07: Stability Operations is Released
On Monday the Army released Field Manual 3.07: Stability Operations, the third in a series of revolutionary doctrinal publications. It follows FM 3-24: Counterinsurgency and FM 3-0: Operations.
Taken together, these three manuals represent the direction today's Armed Forces are moving. They are in direct response to Department of Defense Directive 3000.05, which states, "Stability operations are a core U.S. military mission that the Department of Defense shall be prepared to conduct and support. They shall be given priority comparable to combat operations and be explicitly addressed and integrated across all DoD activities including doctrine, organizations, training, education, exercises, materiel, leadership, personnel, facilities, and planning."
In the Foreword to FM 3.07, Lt. Gen William Caldwell IV (about whom I wrote last week, because of his support for blogging) writes:
America's future abroad is unlikely to resemble Afghanistan or Iraq, where we grapple with the burden of nation-building under fire. Instead, we will work through and with the community of nations to defeat insurgency, assist fragile states, and provide vital humanitarian aid to the suffering. Achieving victory will assume new dimensions as we strengthen our ability to generate "soft" power to promote participation in government, spur economic development, and address the root causes of conflict among the disenfranchised populations of the world. At the heart of this effort is a comprehensive approach to stability operations that integrates the tools of statecraft with our military forces, international partners, humanitarian organizations, and the private sector.
These words echo the message that Defense Secretary Gates has been espousing for some time, which I believe wholeheartedly.
My only regret about these new publications is that they are not Joint. The complexity and fragility of Stability Operations demand that all the players on the team use the same playbook; Unity of Effort is essential. Unfortunately, doctrinal debates have caused a rift between the Army and Air Force. The Air Force was slow to write counterinsurgency doctrine, and to the best of my knowledge, only a few Air Force officers have seriously engaged with the Army in the doctrinal discussion. Maj. Gen. Charles Dunlap is the most prominent, but his conclusions stand in stark contrast to the Army's new body of doctrine and are being hotly contested. If anything, the debate about the Air Force's role in counterinsurgency suggests how fractured our joint team really is. The Air Force now has AFDD 2-3 Irregular Warfare, which is a welcome development, but it uses different terminology and models than the Army for classifying conflicts. It focuses primarily on airpower's contributions to irregular warfare, and gives comparatively little attention to the overall strategic framework of stability operations. The Army and Air Force would benefit from sitting down together and writing a common playbook.
Now that these manuals are in print, the challenge is organizing our Armed Forces accordingly. Writing on Small Wars Journal, John Nagl says, "Doctrine drives the way we organize and train our forces, educate our leaders, and select and promote our people. The Army now faces the difficult task of implementing significant changes in all of those areas to build the military we need for the 21st century." We have a long way to go, but I'm encouraged by the strong leadership and intellectual vigor among senior leaders that have produced these publications.
Taken together, these three manuals represent the direction today's Armed Forces are moving. They are in direct response to Department of Defense Directive 3000.05, which states, "Stability operations are a core U.S. military mission that the Department of Defense shall be prepared to conduct and support. They shall be given priority comparable to combat operations and be explicitly addressed and integrated across all DoD activities including doctrine, organizations, training, education, exercises, materiel, leadership, personnel, facilities, and planning."
In the Foreword to FM 3.07, Lt. Gen William Caldwell IV (about whom I wrote last week, because of his support for blogging) writes:
America's future abroad is unlikely to resemble Afghanistan or Iraq, where we grapple with the burden of nation-building under fire. Instead, we will work through and with the community of nations to defeat insurgency, assist fragile states, and provide vital humanitarian aid to the suffering. Achieving victory will assume new dimensions as we strengthen our ability to generate "soft" power to promote participation in government, spur economic development, and address the root causes of conflict among the disenfranchised populations of the world. At the heart of this effort is a comprehensive approach to stability operations that integrates the tools of statecraft with our military forces, international partners, humanitarian organizations, and the private sector.
These words echo the message that Defense Secretary Gates has been espousing for some time, which I believe wholeheartedly.
My only regret about these new publications is that they are not Joint. The complexity and fragility of Stability Operations demand that all the players on the team use the same playbook; Unity of Effort is essential. Unfortunately, doctrinal debates have caused a rift between the Army and Air Force. The Air Force was slow to write counterinsurgency doctrine, and to the best of my knowledge, only a few Air Force officers have seriously engaged with the Army in the doctrinal discussion. Maj. Gen. Charles Dunlap is the most prominent, but his conclusions stand in stark contrast to the Army's new body of doctrine and are being hotly contested. If anything, the debate about the Air Force's role in counterinsurgency suggests how fractured our joint team really is. The Air Force now has AFDD 2-3 Irregular Warfare, which is a welcome development, but it uses different terminology and models than the Army for classifying conflicts. It focuses primarily on airpower's contributions to irregular warfare, and gives comparatively little attention to the overall strategic framework of stability operations. The Army and Air Force would benefit from sitting down together and writing a common playbook.
Now that these manuals are in print, the challenge is organizing our Armed Forces accordingly. Writing on Small Wars Journal, John Nagl says, "Doctrine drives the way we organize and train our forces, educate our leaders, and select and promote our people. The Army now faces the difficult task of implementing significant changes in all of those areas to build the military we need for the 21st century." We have a long way to go, but I'm encouraged by the strong leadership and intellectual vigor among senior leaders that have produced these publications.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Critiquing the Air Force's Procurement System
I hate to echo so much of Wired magazine's "Danger Room" blog, but Noah Shachtman simply publishes too much good news that military officers and other students of armed conflict should pay attention to.
In a post titled The Air Force's Biggest Enemy: Itself, he discusses a draft report by The Center for Strategic & International studies titled America's Self-Destroying Airpower: Becoming Your Own Peer Threat. The authors use case studies of programs such as the F-22, F-35, and KC-X to advance their thesis that the military's procurement system is like a fish "rotting from the head down." According to the authors, a deficit of leadership at all levels has led the Air Force to its present crisis: out of money, unable to recapitalize its aging fleet, and with replacement aircraft locked up in political battles because of cost overruns and lengthy program delays.
I will not offer any commentary, since I'm out of my area of expertise and out of my pay grade. But the paper is an important read for today's Air Force officer.
In a post titled The Air Force's Biggest Enemy: Itself, he discusses a draft report by The Center for Strategic & International studies titled America's Self-Destroying Airpower: Becoming Your Own Peer Threat. The authors use case studies of programs such as the F-22, F-35, and KC-X to advance their thesis that the military's procurement system is like a fish "rotting from the head down." According to the authors, a deficit of leadership at all levels has led the Air Force to its present crisis: out of money, unable to recapitalize its aging fleet, and with replacement aircraft locked up in political battles because of cost overruns and lengthy program delays.
I will not offer any commentary, since I'm out of my area of expertise and out of my pay grade. But the paper is an important read for today's Air Force officer.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
The Doctrine Debate - And How It Should Be Conducted
The Atlantic Monthly is running an article this month summarizing a major doctrinal debate in the Army: should the Army focus on its core competency to fight and win conventional wars, or should it transform to fight "long wars" like counterinsurgency and nation building? The article, titled The Petraeus Doctrine, calls these two camps The Conservatives and The Crusaders. If you're not familiar with the debate, this article is a great primer.
The article has caused some controversy; the most compelling critique is that it creates a false dichotomy. Can our military not train and plan for both missions? Small Wars Journal has already published one response.
The major players in this debate are in the Army, but the Air Force needs to pay attention. The Air Force was slow entering the dialogue; it mostly sat out during the drafting of FM 3-24 (the counterinsurgency manual upon which the Surge strategy was based) and had to scramble to catch up when it realized seismic changes were underway. When I completed Squadron Officer School by correspondence in mid-2007, I found the word "counterinsurgency" only one time in my ~800 page curriculum. When I attended the in-residence school, counterinsurgency was scarcely mentioned. Relatively few Air Force thinkers have engaged with the Army debate. Meanwhile, as the Air Force seeks to find its place in this turbulent new world, Defense Secretary Gates is handing down new priorities and new orders--less focus on fighting China someday, more focus on winning the Long War, more ISR capability. The Air Force needs to join the larger discussion and thoughtfully consider its role in a rapidly changing world.
The Atlantic Monthly article also raises a broader question: who should be having these kinds of debates? Who should make the ultimate decisions? Many would argue that this debate belongs at the level of the military's civilian supervisors. At present, however, Active Duty officers (or freshly retired officers) are leading the debate--and they are doing it in the public spotlight. Is this acceptable? I leave that as an open question, but I will say this: it is part of a growing trend, where military officers are being asked to shoulder more and more of our nation's responsibilities, because of a vacuum among other institutions. This is especially true of foreign policy; Defense Secretary Gates warned in July of "creeping militarization" of American foreign policy because of the erosion of America's civilian institutions. In The Mission, Dana Priest argues that, "U.S. leaders have been turning more and more to the military to solve problems that are often, at their root, political and economic." Now, it seems, officers are stepping forward to debate matters of grand strategy and defense transformation because a comparable debate is not taking place among their civilian leaders.
The article has caused some controversy; the most compelling critique is that it creates a false dichotomy. Can our military not train and plan for both missions? Small Wars Journal has already published one response.
The major players in this debate are in the Army, but the Air Force needs to pay attention. The Air Force was slow entering the dialogue; it mostly sat out during the drafting of FM 3-24 (the counterinsurgency manual upon which the Surge strategy was based) and had to scramble to catch up when it realized seismic changes were underway. When I completed Squadron Officer School by correspondence in mid-2007, I found the word "counterinsurgency" only one time in my ~800 page curriculum. When I attended the in-residence school, counterinsurgency was scarcely mentioned. Relatively few Air Force thinkers have engaged with the Army debate. Meanwhile, as the Air Force seeks to find its place in this turbulent new world, Defense Secretary Gates is handing down new priorities and new orders--less focus on fighting China someday, more focus on winning the Long War, more ISR capability. The Air Force needs to join the larger discussion and thoughtfully consider its role in a rapidly changing world.
The Atlantic Monthly article also raises a broader question: who should be having these kinds of debates? Who should make the ultimate decisions? Many would argue that this debate belongs at the level of the military's civilian supervisors. At present, however, Active Duty officers (or freshly retired officers) are leading the debate--and they are doing it in the public spotlight. Is this acceptable? I leave that as an open question, but I will say this: it is part of a growing trend, where military officers are being asked to shoulder more and more of our nation's responsibilities, because of a vacuum among other institutions. This is especially true of foreign policy; Defense Secretary Gates warned in July of "creeping militarization" of American foreign policy because of the erosion of America's civilian institutions. In The Mission, Dana Priest argues that, "U.S. leaders have been turning more and more to the military to solve problems that are often, at their root, political and economic." Now, it seems, officers are stepping forward to debate matters of grand strategy and defense transformation because a comparable debate is not taking place among their civilian leaders.
Investing in the Right Kind of Technology
If the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have taught our military one lesson about defense transformation, it's that technology has limits. No amount of firepower, stealth, or precision munitions will achieve complex political objectives like building effective governance in shattered countries, or convincing insurgents to lay down their arms. Still, we need to be careful not to take this lesson too far. Technology can still be a powerful instrument in both war and peace--if it's the right kind of technology and is used wisely. The F-22 may symbolize a bygone era of warfare (depending on who you ask), but the Predator and Reaper--to name two examples--have emerged as crucial technologies in the dizzying world of counterinsurgency. In today's world, good Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) programs are among the Air Force's most vital contributions to modern warfare.
The Air Force tends to view technology through a cyclical process of designing, procuring, and employing "major weapon systems" like aircraft and missiles. Maintaining a cutting-edge fleet of aircraft is essential to the Air Force's mission, but I worry that equally important (or, arguably, more important) technologies are being neglected because they don't fit into these categories or processes.
For example, acquiring aerial imagery of a battlefield is only part of the ISR mission. The Air Force also needs technologies and processes to filter, analyze, and distill a torrent of raw data; it needs to put essential information into the hands of warfighters on the ground or in the air; and it needs to design organizations that facilitate the rapid and organized flow of information. What will these technologies look like?
One example I've already mentioned, and which I will continue to mention, is Google Earth and other geospatial products. By geotagging information, and allowing users in the field to collaborate in one online environment, the military could potentially build a dynamic, real-time "virtual battlespace" that represents an entire theater. Air Force pilots planning low-level ingresses could see the Army's active firing ranges. Perhaps with a few clicks, they could talk directly with the range controllers. Army troops planning a patrol could see real-time Predator feeds. A fresh unit swapping into the theater could access overlays of Baghdad or Mosul, tagged with unit-produced maps, intelligence reports, and notes from their predecessors. A virtual collaborative battlespace could be an incredibly powerful tool for all its users.
But that's not all... the technology will soon be even more powerful. The military would be wise to keep an eye on Augmented Reality. Imagine that in five years the virtual battlespace mentioned above actually exists. Now imagine that every soldier and Marine has a pair of glasses wired with a heads-up display, GPS, and Internet connection. When the soldier looks at something--a bustling market in the middle of Baghdad, for example--his HUD overlays geotagged information from the virtual battlespace, informing him that an IED detonated here three weeks ago, and that a suspected insurgent lives above the butcher shop across the street. Half a country away, a Special Forces tries to identify a convoy rumbling along the main road. It sees real-time tracking information from the Red Cross/Red Crescent, which identifies the convoy as an authorized humanitarian delivery. Hopefully we won't still have US soldiers battling IEDs in Iraq in five years, but you get the point.
These are the kinds of technology that will transform tomorrow's battlefield. They are unconventional, and they don't fit neatly into major-weapon system planning cycles. The good news is that, compared with an F-22 or a C-17, they're relatively inexpensive; the private sector is doing most of the innovation, and at a blistering pace. The bad news is that takes incredible vision and leadership to embrace such unconventional technologies. I hope our military leaders have the wisdom and foresight to rise to the challenge.
Example of Augmented Reality from How Stuff Works.
The Air Force tends to view technology through a cyclical process of designing, procuring, and employing "major weapon systems" like aircraft and missiles. Maintaining a cutting-edge fleet of aircraft is essential to the Air Force's mission, but I worry that equally important (or, arguably, more important) technologies are being neglected because they don't fit into these categories or processes.
For example, acquiring aerial imagery of a battlefield is only part of the ISR mission. The Air Force also needs technologies and processes to filter, analyze, and distill a torrent of raw data; it needs to put essential information into the hands of warfighters on the ground or in the air; and it needs to design organizations that facilitate the rapid and organized flow of information. What will these technologies look like?
One example I've already mentioned, and which I will continue to mention, is Google Earth and other geospatial products. By geotagging information, and allowing users in the field to collaborate in one online environment, the military could potentially build a dynamic, real-time "virtual battlespace" that represents an entire theater. Air Force pilots planning low-level ingresses could see the Army's active firing ranges. Perhaps with a few clicks, they could talk directly with the range controllers. Army troops planning a patrol could see real-time Predator feeds. A fresh unit swapping into the theater could access overlays of Baghdad or Mosul, tagged with unit-produced maps, intelligence reports, and notes from their predecessors. A virtual collaborative battlespace could be an incredibly powerful tool for all its users.
But that's not all... the technology will soon be even more powerful. The military would be wise to keep an eye on Augmented Reality. Imagine that in five years the virtual battlespace mentioned above actually exists. Now imagine that every soldier and Marine has a pair of glasses wired with a heads-up display, GPS, and Internet connection. When the soldier looks at something--a bustling market in the middle of Baghdad, for example--his HUD overlays geotagged information from the virtual battlespace, informing him that an IED detonated here three weeks ago, and that a suspected insurgent lives above the butcher shop across the street. Half a country away, a Special Forces tries to identify a convoy rumbling along the main road. It sees real-time tracking information from the Red Cross/Red Crescent, which identifies the convoy as an authorized humanitarian delivery. Hopefully we won't still have US soldiers battling IEDs in Iraq in five years, but you get the point.
These are the kinds of technology that will transform tomorrow's battlefield. They are unconventional, and they don't fit neatly into major-weapon system planning cycles. The good news is that, compared with an F-22 or a C-17, they're relatively inexpensive; the private sector is doing most of the innovation, and at a blistering pace. The bad news is that takes incredible vision and leadership to embrace such unconventional technologies. I hope our military leaders have the wisdom and foresight to rise to the challenge.
Example of Augmented Reality from How Stuff Works.
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