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Thursday, March 23, 2006 Technology and the Future of WarfareContinued from page 3 By Mark Williams
TR: What should we be doing against both the insurgency in Iraq and al-Qaeda? JA: The terrorists have a technology strategy designed to get the most effective, most usable tools out there for their use. They've learned to ride the rails of our technology to strike at us. One area of short-term research that the U.S. is emphasizing is the effort to deal in a technological way with the problem of the improvised explosive device. Of course, our opponents have figured out a variety of systems allowing them to detonate these weapons in a way that cannot be jammed. I can't talk in more detail, but these leaderless networks we're fighting in Iraq are giving as good as they get in technological terms. The real answer is about understanding the enemy as a system and trying to pull that system apart. But we're not doing that. We're going simply for the technological fix and that's one reason we've had so much trouble with these IEDs. Since we're spending so much on military affairs, maybe some of that should be directed towards technologies that will break our opponents' communications. In World War II, there was an investment in creating the first high-performance computers, for that very purpose. Today, it may be an investment in creating the most effective quantum computing or figuring out how to structure the vast ocean of data that masks the movements of al-Qaeda on the Net and the Web. We need a new Bletchley Park [the country house where the German WWII codes were broken], if we're going to win this war. TR: Aren't our enemies in Iraq an entirely human network? It's not clear that breaking into their Internet communications... JA: Oh, but they don't exist without the Web and the Net. You don't move around that country easily and even the old-school Baathist insurgent elements rely on the Web. A networked insurgency doesn't have anything like a traditional leadership. Most of the leadership they get is by going on websites, where they share information very quickly. TR: Could we take down the Net in Iraq and would it have the effect of downing the insurgency to a significant degree? JA: You could end all Internet access in Iraq and it would in many ways cripple the insurgents, in terms of slowing them down tremendously. But you'd also cripple reconstruction. TR: So, in other words, we should data-mine Net exchanges within Iraq? JA: There you go. The great figure in all this is Admiral John Poindexter. He suffered from his vaguely Orwellian-seeming tendencies and his connections with the Iran-Contra scandal. But the truth is he's had the most important ideas in decades about how to revolutionize intelligence-gathering. He understands the Web and the Net. He's one of the original, great military computer scientists and it's a tragedy that his ideas were discredited for very poor reasons. TR: Why were those reasons poor? JA: We live in an era when the power of small groups and individuals has expanded beyond our imaginations. We live in a virtually transparent world. The truth is that to have more security we have to give up some privacy. |
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The Ascent of the Robotic Attack Jet
03/01/2005
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Comments
Guest (David Anderson) on 03/23/2006 at 12:00 AM
1
as per the Bush Administration (and other admins) who cares if it makes sense, as long as it makes lots of money for our group?
I mean it is only taxpayer money, anyhow...
Guest (SirLanse) on 03/23/2006 at 12:00 AM
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We also have friends and not so friends that we must impress.
Park a HUGE ship in a harbor and the locals will re-think the US.
Many think of the US as the guys that ran in Somalia. "We can beat these fat boys." The big iron is to intimidate them. Scare a few, you will have fewer to fight later.
Militaries have been doing this for thousands of years.
Guest (Dave Narby) on 03/23/2006 at 12:00 AM
1
That's your "Big Iron" for you. It's so big and slow it might as well be fixed.
Swarming, distributed semi or totally autonomous robots are the future.
Send 'em out on patrol with instructions to give control to a human when the sensors go off.
Need millions of soldiers to run them? Re-instate the draft, except this time the soldiers are never in the line of fire, so there won't be any public outcry.
Conscientious objectors? No problem: There's ten guys weaned on video games ready to step in and fill the breach.
Shoot one or blow it up, who cares? Send in a dozen more, that'll teach 'em.
Phillip K. Dick got it right (again).
Guest (Artfldgr) on 03/24/2006 at 12:00 AM
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go to the darpa site and you will find a request for putting mems divices in the larva of insects to control them.
even hollyweird never thought that was plausible enough!!!
Guest (Dr. Fu) on 03/31/2006 at 12:00 AM
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Guest (Ronald Zien) on 03/23/2006 at 12:00 AM
1
Guest (Spartacus Galt) on 03/23/2006 at 12:00 AM
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Until you get attacked!
HuUUUururrrRRrr...!
Guest (sam) on 03/24/2006 at 12:00 AM
1
Guest (Colin) on 03/26/2006 at 12:00 AM
1
The enemy will sometimes suprise us by being smart and prescient. We must out-think and out-guess him.
Our enemies do not hold their lives as dear as we do ours. We must not be thwarted by body counts or setbacks. Pretend that our lives and country are at stake.
Guest (Bruce Nicholson) on 03/31/2006 at 12:00 AM
1