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Technology Leveling The Playing Field In Modern War
Posted by
Zonk
on Sat Nov 24, 2007 06:12 AM
from the to-the-detriment-of-the-armed-forces dept.
from the to-the-detriment-of-the-armed-forces dept.
The IEEE spectrum site has up an article written by the author Robert N. Charette describing the 'empowerment of the individual to conduct war' through technology. In the piece, entitled Open-Source Warfare, Charette describes the cheap, inexpensive, but clever ways that militants are adapting to modern warfare. "As events are making painfully clear, [counterterrorism expert John Robb] says, warfare is being transformed from a closed, state-sponsored affair to one where the means and the know-how to do battle are readily found on the Internet and at your local RadioShack. This open global access to increasingly powerful technological tools, he says, is in effect allowing 'small groups to...declare war on nations.' Need a missile-guidance system? Buy yourself a Sony PlayStation 2. Need more capability? Just upgrade to a PS3."
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what a nonsense (Score:3, Interesting)
In fact all that tech is quickly becoming a weakness.
Think about South Korea, more afraid of North Koreas conventional weaponry and artillery then of their nuke (assuming they really do have one).
http://rndpic.com/ [rndpic.com]
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Are you kidding? Do you still believe that line that the abuses are the work of individuals and not officially sanctioned?
How does this stack up against e.g. General Abizaid threatening reprisals against the civilian population of Iraq for insurgent actions (as referenced in this [slashdot.org] Slashdot discussion)? Germans were sentenced to the gallows for that in Nuremberg. What has been done to General Abizaid?
Mart
Re:what a nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
The Romans were mostly successful because they extensively employed the strategy of Pax Romana, which basically the antique equivalent of the modern concept of soft power [wikipedia.org]. You see, for most of the peoples around the Roman Empire, war was endemic (for example, the Germanic tribes raided each other on an annual basis) and they knew that life would be longer, more prosperous, and more peaceful if they joined their larger neighbor.
There are many kinds of power (power being defined as the ability to influence events to your advantage). The ability to inflict damage is one, the ability to entice others to your position is another, the ability to bring economic factors into the game is another, political will is another, and so on. Also, power is non-fungible, that is, being powerful in one area does not compensate for a great weakness in another area. This is why the EU, which is a great economic power, is not considered a world power as it lacks the political will to act in concert. Similarly, India's large population and military might (they are a nuclear power) do not compensate for its economic weakness.
Fear works to some degree, but only in concert with other elements of power. You can only build a stable system if the majority of people within that system agree on its fundamental precepts (this is one aspect of political power). So, if we try to build a government in Iraq based on fear, we are going to run into problems that the power we exert in one arena (military might) will not compensate for our failure to exert power in other arenas, such as political will.
Developing a strategy that will bring several elements of power to bear is doable, but very difficult. That is why, in the future, we should avoid electing uneducated people (an MBA is not an education), or at least elect uneducated people who will appoint educated advisors and then listen to them instead of the veep.
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Machiavelli (Score:3, Interesting)
That's why it's kind of mind-boggling to see the US fail so miserably in its imperialist occupation in Iraq. The part where they disbanded the Iraqi army instead of giving them at least tokens of power is especially laughable in this respect; it shows that Bush, along with his merry band of war criminals, is most certainly as stupid and ignorant as he looks.
Re:Machiavelli (Score:4, Insightful)
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Illegally declaring a war on false premises leading directly to the death of thousands of American soldiers, foreign soldiers, -and- civilians? He's no genocidal madman, but he's certainly no common criminal either.
Plus if he were the president of any other country (say if Iran were to invade another country to halt its nuclear weapons program, for example) the US administration and media would surely call him a war criminal.
Re:Crime against peace (Score:5, Insightful)
European opposition was like an adult saying to a teenager "don't drink and drive or you'll smash into a tree or worse kill some poor family who are driving home." Then the kid goes out gets drunk and smashes his Dad's suburban into a minivan full of kids at 95 mph. That's Iraq. That's not 20/20 hindsight. Just because you did not have the ability to model the results of a US invasion of Baghdad does mean other people didn't know what was going to happen.
If the EU is trying to "assert" themselves against us why is NATO in Afghanistan? Why because it was a legitimate target and one that needed attention. Iraq at the time was just another shit hole ruled by an asshole with limited ability to extend its power beyond its border. What poower it did have still acted as a counter balance to Iran.
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Hi, US Air Force, been to Iraq and Afghanistan. My views do not in any way reflect the viewpoint of the United States Military, nor should anything I say be misinterpreted as an official statement.
The prospect of three square meals a day in an American prison, where you have a roof over your head, and the "torture" you're subjected to is downright comfortable compared to daily life on the outside is decidedly not terrifying.
The Enemy is not scared to death. They are simply not suicidal (except for,
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Yeah, the article is stupid. It's not like these "nations" invented how to wage war.
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Germany had all the modern weaponry, the Soviets had only manpower and bad weather on their side (at least in the beginning). The european countries all were a pushover, except the UK, which was protected by terrain
There was some partisan warfare then, which resembles the Iraqi situation, except that wwii partisans didn't go suicide and didn't kill their own civilians.
That isn't exactly correct (Score:5, Interesting)
1. German tanks _were_ weaker. Yes, everyone knows about Tigers and Panthers later, but in 39 we entered the war with Pz-I and Pz-II. That was the bulk of the German army. The I series was little more than an armoured car with two _medium_ machineguns in a turret. They were intended to be training tanks, but got pressed into the war because of lack of anything better.
Plus a couple of better ones, half of them captured from the Czechs, but they were anything but the bulk of the army.
Most German soldiers were equipped with a bolt action rifle until the end of the war.
Where Germany excelled were the doctrines. I.e., how you use that equipment.
E.g., tanks were weaker, but that was ok, because they were only supposed to punch through or bypass, take some important position, then let the enemy attack you to take it back. And then you could use the 88mm FLAK gun to kill any better tanks the enemy might have had. That was Blitzkrieg.
E.g., the soldiers may have had bolt action rifles, but that was ok because the German infantry doctrine had the squad machinegun as the central piece, and the rest of the squad was mostly support for it. (By comparison, the Americans saw it the other way around, so they were saddled with the shitty BAR as a piss-poor substitute for a squad MG.)
2. The Soviet union was more technologically advanced than you seem to think, grasshopper.
The T34 was years ahead of anything anyone else had. The 76mm gun could break through any other nation's tanks' armour even with the high explosive round. And the front armour was just short of invulnerable to anything Germany had on a tank.
The T34 was one of the reasons why Germany rushed to attack the USSR early. Hitler couldn't risk waiting until it's produced in large numbers.
You know the (in)famous German Panther? Well, that was a shameless copy of the Soviet T34. Really. The initial proposal was to just start manufacturing T34s, but it was seen as a matter of national pride to not be that obvious about it. So they changed the gun on it and a few other details, but otherwise it was still just a modded T34.
The KV-1 and KV-2 were a nightmare for the German army too. It took quite literally hundreds of hits to disable one. That was _years_ before the Tigers.
Add other advances, like rocket artillery, early semi-automatic rifles (and mass use of SMGs, far ahead of the numbers the Germans had), etc, and the Russians weren't technologically handicapped at all.
Heck, even their AT guns, Germany used any they could lay their hands on. There were whole series of vehicles built with captured soviet AT guns. That says something, doesn't it? They wouldn't have used something that's two generations behind.
3. Don't get me wrong, the USSR did have its own problems and handicaps. But it wasn't as handicapped as most people seem to assume anyway.
The biggest and foremost problem the USSR had wasn't technological at all. Their army had just gone through Stalin's purges, and was (A) lacking competent officers, (B) paralized with fear of being the next scapegoat if they show any initiative, and (C) put under the control of comissars who were there just for political reasons, not for any military competence. The USSR, including the army, also had a _massive_ morale problem. At least half the people (and almost all the minorities and non-Russian Soviet republics) would have been happier to fight against Stalin than for him.
_That_ is the main factor that almost doomed the USSR in the early days of Operation Barbarossa.
A second problem -- again, mostly because of doctrine and political idiocy, rather than technology -- was that the Russians didn't believe in using radios on their tanks. They had them in homeopathic quantities, if at all. So once they were buttoned up in combat, each tank was almost on its own and had
Parent
Nah (Score:5, Informative)
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Microsofts marketing (Score:4, Funny)
You what? (Score:4, Interesting)
Seriously, WTF? How does a Playstation have any benefits over other smaller, cheaper, lighter computer hardware for guiding missiles? How does cheap computer hardware have any benefits at all when you don't have the software to run on it? How would hardware and software have any benefits at all when you don't have any guided missiles in the first place, and if some rogue state (or the CIA, depending on whose side you're on) wanted to supply you with them, they could just supply you with guidance systems at the same time?!
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Seriously, WTF? How does a Playstation have any benefits over other smaller, cheaper, lighter computer hardware for guiding missiles? How does cheap computer hardware have any benefits at all when you don't have the software to run on it? How would hardware and software have any benefits at all when you don't have any guided missiles in the first place, and if some rogue state (or the CIA, depending on whose side you're on) wanted to supply you with them, they could just supply you with guidance systems at the same time?!
You think too much.
Open Source Warfare is the way hackers can build their own, Linux-powered missile guidance systems, and with Compiz Fusion, you get not only spiffy 3D graphics, but also a Compiz Fusion Warhead.
And since OpenMoko promotes open hardware, open warheads are just a step away.
However, there is no chemical weaponry to be assembled in the Open Source world[1] - with all those crippled chemistry sets, we'll just have to settle for biological weaponry.
[1]oops: I'd initially spelled it Opwn S
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Actually, it wouldn't be all the hard to make a guided missile. Getting enough explosives and power behind the explosives to do any damage and still have more range then throwing something would probably be the hardest part. But building an UAV or something similar should lend itself to being rather easy in comparison.
One of the things I hate about modern Radio shack and the model plane business altogether toda
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Oh, I'm sorry... (Score:5, Funny)
I'd thought guerrilla wasn't exactly a new concept...
/* BTW inexpensive == cheap */
Pitchforks anyone? (Score:3, Insightful)
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Re:Pitchforks anyone? (Score:5, Funny)
Wow.
I didn't know veterinarians were so militant.
Though I can see the rationale... if you're going to spay (or bathe) a cat, you'd better be learned in the arts of war.
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RTFA (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not talking about open source software, it's open source as a methodology. The author is using the term open source in terms of how knowledge of improvised weapons and tactics are being spread. That technically sophisticated terrorists have managed to shorten the learning curve. It's open source intelligence and the premise is not flawed. They're using the open source model very effectively. It's not that the pitchforks are all that much more advanced, it's the learning environment that's advanced
We are in effect training them how to fight us. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Let's see...
and
I'd agree the post sounds like rambling, but I'd say it's the sentences between these two make it seem so.
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Get off the internet straw man man.
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The Muj didn't beat the Soviets alone. They could never have done it without our assistance.
-l
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PS3 is too much work for a guidance system (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.u-nav.com/picopilot/picopilotn.html [u-nav.com]
$500 gets you a solid state autopilot programmable with GPS waypoints. It also already has a interface to servo's.
Just because you could build a guidance system from a game system, doesn't mean it's really going to have any advantage in the real world.
It's not the technology, it's the men (Score:2)
Bruce Simpson (Score:3, Interesting)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3302763.stm [bbc.co.uk]
http://www.interestingprojects.com/cruisemissile/ [interestingprojects.com]
He's talented and not afraid of controversy and his part in the infamous "jet carts" episode from Scrapheap Challenge is excellent. I always thought he had a point about this one.
btw. I always though IE D from the article was a very misleading term - many of these devices are NOT improvised the insurgents pack them out on a factory line and some of them are relatively advanced in the design and detonation system - as far as I can tell from the news reports.
Long article, not much in it (Score:4, Insightful)
Such as? I couldn't find much at all in the article except for some vague references to IEDs and cell phones, terrorist manuals found on the internet (most of which, according to TFA are terribly inaccurate) and ridiculous comments such as the one about PS2 being used as a missile guidance system. Sounds like someone came up with a new buzzword "open source warfare" and thought it was so cool that it warranted a 5 page article. People have used guerrilla tactics forever and I don't see anything terribly new here except perhaps detonating bombs remotely using a cellphone.
That's what you get for declaring "War on Terror" (Score:5, Insightful)
Calling the World Trade Center attacks an "Attack on America" just upgraded a couple of lunatic terrorists to warfaring guys that can attack a nation.
What a bunch of bullcrap. But good for the security industry. They can sell a bunch of crap on that. The Iraqis are now used to live with a big one every week. America turned into a bunch of pussies because of one lousy (OK, it was pretty good, but it was still just one) attack. I am from Germany and we went through this before. The RAF formed in the 70s and the whole nation went ape shit crazy. Anti-Terrorism-legislation went unanimously through parliament that was against basic rights and the constitution on many accounts.
I think this makes terror work in the first place. If we don't pass legislation. If we don't go ape shit. Then we win against them. The loosing starts by calling them terrorists. They are a bunch of lunatics that badly need to be put behind bars. Nothing more, nothing less.
"Modern warfare"? This article marks just another loss.
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Ignoring them as terrorists is the right answer.
They should be treated and convicted like any other criminals without acknowledging them as something special. As soon as you label them "terrorists", you give them the credit they want.
Whee! This article is buzzword compliant! (Score:4, Insightful)
The insurgency has an advantage in that all they really need to do to win is continue to create a lot of chaos. That's a somewhat more modest objective than invading and occupying another country on the other side of the globe, which no number of PS3s and radio shack components will enable any guerilla army to do any time soon. They aren't particularly high tech, unless you were naive enough to think Iraqis didn't have cell phones and the Internet prior to the war. So technology isn't really leveling the playing field at all; it's just the nature of counter insurgency warfare.
It's a shame we lost a $100,000 robot to disarm a much less expensive IED, but that's why we built the robots. Ideally they'd come back from every mission, but if they don't it's quite an improvement over losing a solider, as we might have done in Vietnam.
What surprises me (Score:3)
Oh, look! Everybody is a terrorist. (Score:3, Insightful)
And so, here are a few of my favorite quotes from the article. . .
To understand open-source warfare, it's instructive to revisit Eric S. Raymond's 1997 manifesto, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, in which he describes how a large community of open-source software hackers created the operating system Linux. "Linux is subversive," Raymond wrote.
Wow. So there it is. Writing software in your spare time for the fun of it is now 'hacking', 'subversive' and linked to terrorism. They've been trying like crazy to connect those synapses for years now, but this is the first time I've read an article which says it with such bald-faced impunity.
In studying the behaviors of insurgencies in Iraq and elsewhere, as well as organized-crime syndicates and other groups, Robb noticed the many parallels to the open-source model in software. [. .
Well, thank-you Robb! You just described everybody living in an industrialized nation with an internet connection. He's not describing the community living in a bombed out Iraq or Afghanistan, where they can't even get running water with any reliability, let alone electricity and an internet service provider. Nope. He's describing you and me.
But this article isn't just about trying to make every day activities seem suspicious. The whole thing is a giant sell-job. It just takes for granted that terrorists are real, that brown people defending their country against invaders are our natural enemy and that defeating them is merely a technical problem requiring trillions of dollars. Little robots for detecting road-side mines which cost $100,000 each? Jeezuz. Give me a $100,000 and I'll build you a fleet of frickin' radio-controlled Tonka dune buggies with mini-Canada Arms. Those $100,000 robots are the best indication of exactly what this war is really all about. Money. Hoovering up as much cash from the over-taxed citizens as is possible. Money. You are a terrorist if you write your own software instead of buying Microsoft. (--Money, and that loony little Christian-cult-of-apocalypse-Christ-Rising-In-Babylon(Iraq) thing.) But we know all of this! I'm just repeating what has been said a few thousand times already. And guess what? I'll keep on repeating it whenever I see evil sell-jobs like this dumb article.
Here's a new term: How about, "Closed-Source Propaganda"?
Somebody is paying this 'counterterrorism expert', John Robb's bills. Now who in the great Homeland could that be?
Money from the top. He's not writing this shit in his spare time while panning for donations. He's a soldier for the Neocon Pathocracy. Those secretive bastards are as closed-source as you can get.
-FL
The LIE is right there in the article (Score:3, Insightful)
He talks about Improvised Explosive Devices and that they account for half the US casualties. Right, eh so? These things are new? Pretty sure my field manual mentioned them, not just how to spot them and deal with them but including suggestions on how to make your own should the need arise. That was over 2 decades ago.
The vietnamese used a lot of IED's and even non-explosive traps. So did the Israeli's in their war against Britian (well would be Israeli's) the various occupied nations during WW2 became exp
The Point of the Article was Missed Here (Score:3, Interesting)
In terms of acquisition, a terrorist can cobble together any sort of armament with any materials available and if it doesn't work, they try again very rapidly. A single U.S. soldier must generally wait for new specially designed equipment to come from the U.S. to combat a given problem. This can take months when lucky and years when not lucky. While the new special equipment likely works very well, the need may have gone away by the time it is delivered. It's not the danger of consumer devices the author was pointing out; it the fact that the enemy has simple cheap and brutally effective weapons based on consumer devices where we have nothing that is either that cheap or nearly as cost effective for the battle at hand. The point about the PS3 was not that the bad guys have PS3 based missiles it's the fact that say a blackberry's processor is just as capable of running a cruise missile as a 1 million dollar circuit card on a cruise missile. That's not to say that the terrorists have the software, it only points up the fact that we ought to question why it takes the U.S. a million dollar control board to do the same thing you could do with a PS3.
What I think the author was trying to say is that we should have the Industrial portion of the Military Industrial Complex cranking out cheap equipment from off the shelf parts designed to meet the need at hand rather than designing multi-million, multi-billion, or multi-trillion dollar systems that take months, years, or decades to field. Why send in a $100,000 packbot to look for explosives if you can send in a $1000 wheeled vehicle made from R/C car parts. With the availablity of cheap explosives on the part of our adversaries, there is no way we can hope to solve the problem with money when there is a 1:100,000 disparity in the cost to us to take out insurgent weapons.
I work for a company that develops quick off the shelf systems for the U.S. military. One system I worked on along these lines ran linux and consisted of lightly modified PC's combined with other special gear. I think we spent 6 months just performing the environment tests to show that the equipment would survive multiple trips to 40 below zero, explosive decompression of an aircraft around it, salt spray etc. It took over a year to get this expedited product out the door.
While the testing was was justified in the case I worked on, I don't see a reason to worry about antarctic applications of tiny cheap and disposable robots for use in the desert. Even if the lifetimes of a lot of this special purpose equipment are short, I think it would be better to put out more cheap equipment faster. A crate of mostly working robots for examining IED's designed as the 90% solution,ON THE GROUND TODAY (with the soldiers), is worth a lot more that a perfectly tested triple checked crate of indestructible robots delivered after the squad they were supposed to protect has perished.
Re:That's is? (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Those open source terrorists! (Score:5, Funny)
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& /. groupthink says *Christans* are irrationa (Score:3, Insightful)
In summary, I think that your points are that Sept 11 was an inside job - a cover up to hide the fact that the government bailed out the rich invested in a hedge fund, and an excuse to cow the masses into believing that threats by outsiders to US national security are real so that the military industrial complex can make more money by waging a war which is actually no threat to our security.
I can't even begin to address how ridiculous these ideas are.
Building 7 was not intentio