A Marine's-Eye View of the Networked Battlefield

Ian Lamont writes "Tyler Boudreau, a Marine veteran of the war in Iraq and a blogger, has written an interesting analysis of the impact of email, IM, and other digital devices upon 'ground-pounders' and their commanders in the field. These innovations were introduced in hopes of increasing situational awareness, rapidly gathering data, analyzing it, organizing it, and then pushing it back out to operators as actionable intelligence. They also provide commanders with the freshest possible information and aid them in their moment-to-moment decision-making. However, Boudreau found that the technologies can lead to micromanagement and deep frustration, trends that he illustrates by describing a shooting incident in al Anbar and its aftermath. He also warns that soldiers can become too dependent upon headquarters for critical decisions, which can lead to dangerous situations when communications get cut off."

Micromanagment and abu ghraib

If higher echelons are indeed taking a deeper role in their subordinates actions then it makes the old "bad apples" denial far less credible, and that is saying something. A government can't claim "we didn't know about this" if they've spent billions developing a system that lets them know everything thats going on everywhere.

Re:Micromanagment and abu ghraib

Taking things that happen between headquarters "tactical operations centers" or TOCs and individual units, then extrapolating that into the communications that happen between higher echelon headquarters or logistical operations is a stretch at best.

At a real TOC somwhere like Iraq, you have 7x24 coverage by people whose job is to report upward on events at that locale. Therefore, a small unit action becomes well known to those in the chain of command associated with that unit. However, a random DFAC (mess hall) at Camp Victory isn't reporting up to its chain with anything approaching that frequency. In fact, that might happen once a week or once a month, aside from regular orders for foodstuffs and personnel actions. Moreover, all the tactical systems associated with this reporting are used by actual warfighters. Those engaged in logistical work will never see such a system.

Same goes for prisons - they have no tactical systems.

Yes, I just came back from there in late April.

Not all it's cracked up to be?

I've always been a little wary of this whole "networked future force warrior" thing. I think it smacks more of hollywood sci-fi than real warfare, sometimes. I can definitely see the advantages of getting more information to your troops, but turning them into walking blackberries may not be the best way to do it in combat. There are some parts of soldiering that just aren't going to change no matter how much technology you throw at it, and the need for your troops on the ground to make quick, independent decisions is a good example. You don't want them constantly emailing/texting/radioing back and forth during a firefight for instructions. That's what unit leadership is for. Too much of this stuff is more bad cyberpunk novel than George Patton.

Re:Not all it's cracked up to be?

I've always been a little wary of this whole "networked future force warrior" thing. I think it smacks more of hollywood sci-fi than real warfare, sometimes. I can definitely see the advantages of getting more information to your troops, but turning them into walking blackberries may not be the best way to do it in combat. There are some parts of soldiering that just aren't going to change no matter how much technology you throw at it, and the need for your troops on the ground to make quick, independent decisions is a good example. You don't want them constantly emailing/texting/radioing back and forth during a firefight for instructions. That's what unit leadership is for. Too much of this stuff is more bad cyberpunk novel than George Patton.

I agree with you with all this networked warrior bs but I'll be the devil's advocate. Look at your WWII dogface. He's a future warrior, at least compared to the WWI doughboy. And he's futuristic compared to what they had in the Crimean War and futuristic to the Roman legionnaire all the way back to the first monkey who hit another monkey with a bone after a visit from the Monolith. And using a bone was pretty high-tech compared to nails and teeth.

Now if we look back, a lot of tech we take for granted as good, solid, traditional equipment had some serious teething problems. Guns were notoriously fickle and unreliable hundreds of years ago, why not trust in arrows and true steel instead? And you could also complain about the trend towards wearing heavier and heavier armor, it slows a warrior down! Why, without armor I can move fast enough I don't have to worry about taking the hit in the first place. Then there was the matter of the crossbow allowing a rude peasant to have the killing power of a proper archer with a longbow, the kind of fine soldier who had to train his whole life to use the weapon well. What's worse, the man with the crossbow could kill a godly knight with the flick of his finger. Contemptible! Unchristian!

In more recent times, tanks were belching, breakdown-prone monstrosities as much a danger to their occupants as the enemy. But we saw there was a good idea there and continued to develop them. Airplanes were primitive, crude, and ultimately were seen as having a negligible effect in WWI but gee, they sure were flashy. And they became invaluable by WWII. Then there's the matter of adopting steam propulsion in a naval warship, that's just not the way things were done! A proper seaman fights under sail. And the first steamships did suck a great deal. But gradually the technology was improved to the point that no captain would dream of doing without it.

The Germans were the first to use radios in their tanks. That was seen as likely to cause great confusion and no other military really considered it until the Germans kicked a whole lot of ass. Then it seemed like a good idea.

I think that the current land warrior concept is probably an awful, terrible, no good idea. But I also think in twenty or thirty years, we're going to be seeing a lot of stuff on the battlefield that soldiers will consider absolutely valuable, cannot do without but we'll still be able to trace the design lineage back to the useless crap they were twiddling around with today.

Re:Not all it's cracked up to be?

That's almost certainly true. I remember reading books about Vietnam and reading that a lot of commanders on the ground ended up being micromanaged by commanders back at base resulting in some incredibly bone headed moves. Repeating that certainly cannot be a good thing. But to be fair, there are certainly good aspects to this idea. Maximizing the amount of useful intelligence to forces on the ground cannot be a bad thing. The fog of war never really goes away, but this can definitely help. I remember reading somewhere that the future warrior stuff they sent to Iraq to test (laptops, PDAs and the like) proved to be extremely helpful IN SOME SITUATIONS. When troops were out on semi planned raids, the live intel proved to be a big bonus. But the rest of the time (regular patrol), the majority of the gear proved to be useless and just and lot of extra weight. As is the case with most technological advances (in any field, not just the military), it has its good and its bad.

Like with a GPS

If I'm running the GPS in my car, I find myself waiting for it to tell me where to go even if I have a good idea of the directions.
I feel like it cripples my sense of direction when I rely on it too much. I'm sure these combat systems could do the same thing

Vietnam redux?

This sounds very familiar. I joined Army ROTC in '73, when all instructors had at least one tour in Vietnam. I served in the 82nd Airborne in the late '70s, when every senior NCOs, many captains, and all field grades had been to Vietnam. Micromanagement was was a common complaint, both from them and in the reading I've done then and since. But while the Infantry School would lecture against micromanagement, I can't say that I saw many of my seniors taking a hands off approach.

Re:Vietnam redux?

But while the Infantry School would lecture against micromanagement, I can't say that I saw many of my seniors taking a hands off approach.

We have a quote of the week on our agency's intranet page (which sometimes stays up for two weeks). Earlier this month, the quote was:

If you tell people where to go but not how to get there, you will be amazed at the results. - General George S. Patton, Jr.

Another version of the quote is:

Don't tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.

Regardless, the point still stands. Micromanagement can be a killer both in the private sector as well as the military (though the military version is a bit more serious). Interestingly enough, Erwin Rommel actively pursued the less-is-more command style. He started the process when he first became an officer, wrote about it and refined it over the years. Since Patton was known to read Rommel's books, it is most likely that in addition to his own views on command, Patton learned and applied what Rommel (and others) had written. As any good leader should do.

Based on your comments, it appears there are officers who should also be reading, and heeding, Rommel's words.

Puts me in mind of Age of Sail navies

On a ship at sea, the captain was God for two reasons. First and foremost, the ship is beyond all the normal structures and civilization. If a majority of the crew decided to ignore the captain, mutiny would be uncontainable. Punishments were so harsh that individual crewmen would be in terror of bringing it upon their heads and the thought of getting enough together that punishment could be defied, victory attained, would seem impossible. And captains absolutely required such authority to be supported once they returned to civilization so the Boards of Admiralty of the various navies would seldom ever overrule or censure them.

What's also fascinating is that the captains also had great latitude in exercising their orders generally. The last history I read was specifically concerning the British military and the American Revolution. There was a common sentiment of not wanting to second-guess the man in the field thousands of miles away. Now either this is true wisdom or looking for a scapegoat, I'm not entirely sure of which and possibly they weren't either. In hindsight, there's also a bit of making a virtue out of necessity because the tools for micro-management from such a distance had not yet been invented and twats like MacNamara had not yet been born.

There's a maxim that goes along the lines of "If a person is granted responsibility of accomplishing a great task, by extension he is granted the authority required to make that task happen." When a leader finds himself in such a situation of responsibility with no authority, he should tell his superiors to kindly go fuck themselves and continue to do so until they've worked their heads out of their own asses.

Obligatory StarCraft remark

NO WAY!

My experience with StarCraft, a 'real-time strategy' simulator, taught me that micromanagement was the KEY to winning!!

Too Much Mutlitasking?

Seriously, with all the recent articles regarding the detrimental effects multitasking has on a person, this sounds like it could do more harm than good. Imagine being in a fire fight and an IM window pops up on your HUD. That would really anger me.

Situational awareness is certainly a good thing, but there have to be limits, otherwise one's overall awareness will decrease due to input overload. A good example is using Google maps on one's N95 or iPhone while driving. Sure, it increases situational awareness vis-a-vis one's current location, but at the cost of smashing into the car ahead or running over a pedestrian because you didn't notice that the light had turned red.

Re:Too Much Mutlitasking?

That's where HCI design comes into play. I've been out of the military for over a decade, but a HUD with useful, non-invasive information would have been great for the things I did back there (air assault engineer).

-map or satellite image of the area I'm in
-location of my squad members, overlay of fire arches. Even better, an indicator on my HUD that tell me if I'm aiming in the direction of a friendly.
-IR overlay of body heat or engines
-ammo left in the magazine
-Corner-shot
-compass, GPS coordinates, and laser distance measurements for calling in fire support
-and, as a special AAE wish: map with blast radius of the charges I just set. Guesstimating how far back to take cover sucks under time pressure.

Now IM from the commanding general would suck, but that's what small slivers of duct tape are for.

With Soldier Radio and WNW, comm will jump again

The level of communications is set to jump even more as networking waveforms are developed and comm systems link up even more. If you look at the CONOPS for some future capabilities, the guy on the original foot patrol could have sent video of the entire firefight to the other patrol, or to an Apache/A-10 overhead and then back to the Battallion. Texting is already in place, but if you listen to any Marine or Army officer talk, voice will always rule supreme. Yeah, you'll have streaming video, IM, texting, etc. But the platoon leader wants to hear voice, and more importantly, the inflection in his voice. I'm sure this article's author backed his man because he heard the sincerity and urgency in his men's voice while on patrol.

Google JTRS if you want to see where the Marines and Army are headed with comm. These will be small form factor, maritime, manpacks, handhelds, etc. Micromanagement and bad leadership will always happen, regardless, but I think good situational awareness and NCOs it will even out.

To all the posters saying, "Soldiers don't think". Please STFU. You're just being dumb and either anti-military, biased, or just spouting crap you heard on CNN. I taught new recruits in the Air Force as a special duty assignment at Vandenberg. I have friends who are Marines that leave and go to Iraq more than you go to the dentist. If there's any common thread between all the branches it's this: accountability is much higher, better skills required , and critical thinking never been more demanded. You can point to Abu, but you're ignorant of the thousands of patrols who held back their trigger finger to allow a bad guy get away because of the civilians behind him. The hundreds of additional hours spent planning ATOs (Air Tasking Orders) so that __IF__ a bomb missed it would not hit innocents and that the proper munition is used for the target, building, support, etc. If you're still not convinced, spend at least an hour reading the foot patrols blogged here [michaelyon-online.com] and then click "Next". Spend some time poking through his dispatchs.

Re:Soldiers Have a Hard Time Thinking for Themselv

Wrong - Soldiers are trained to execute orders obediently and immediately, even if the results are unpleasant. Yes, you have to train out a number of humanist instincts and reactions, but a non-thinking soldier might as well be a robotic drone.

More now than ever your average grunt HAS to think - as in the article - rules of engagement, higher tech weapons, very tense and vague situations involving civilians and higher political repercussions. If you don't have a thinking soldier you are likely going to end up with a disaster on your hands.

The idea of the robotic-kill-on-command soldier is a bygone era and mostly the stuff of anti-war diatribes.

Re:Soldiers Have a Hard Time Thinking for Themselv

First of all, how many of these drones are autonomous? Second, of the drones that are autonomous, how many are designed to return fire when fired upon?

Despite the military's interest in drone technology, they're still very wary about giving non-human piloted craft the ability to launch attacks. For a good example, look at the new Hellfire armed Predator drones. You'll note that it was the CIA that piloted the concept, not the military.

Re:Soldiers Have a Hard Time Thinking for Themselv

You haven't RTFA'd, then; it explicitly discusses how the armed forces are in increasing need of men who think and take initiative on their own, and has adjusted its training towards that end.

This claim that people need to "turn off their critical thinking skills" to be willing to risk their lives for a cause they genuinely believe in makes a mockery of genuine heroes and martyrs everywhere, military or otherwise. You should be ashamed.

Re:Soldiers Have a Hard Time Thinking for Themselv

Not thinking "for themselves" and not "thinking" are two entirely different concepts and don't necessarily correlate to each other.

A soldier or marine be able to comprehend and think about the objective in ways far more detailed then we as average citizens would normally do. I would say that even the cops have to think less more often then the military does. It's become the norm here that when someone has a gun a cop can shoot them. This isn't the case in the military and you have to discern threat as well as control the situation.

When an order is passed down, it doesn't get scripted from the higher ups. If someone makes a call to take that hill or whatever, there are a number of possible scenarios on how to do that which each have to be selected and modified pretty much on the fly by the soldier in the field. The old days of lining both sides up and squaring off like a perverted game of chess are long gone. Now the emphasis is on keeping your side alive while defeating the other side. This means that soldiers are limited in their response because failure or not hitting their objectives could be devastating to others depending on it for their objectives. A high degree of quick and accurate thinking is essential to this end.

Re:Soldiers Have a Hard Time Thinking for Themselv

You obviously have no military background, are ignorant or have a bias/grudge. You can go to jail for "not thinking" at the lesser end, or die at the greater. Are grunts trained to just follow orders? Sure. But on the same hand their taught to use their skills and insight to execute those orders, and if the orders are illegal, to not follow them. It's not uncommon to be told "X needs to be done" and then when you ask, "How?", the answer is, "You figure it out".

Next time, please don't spout ignorant crap like this about my bretheren in uniform. On the off chance you were military, what was the type of discharge, branch of service and your MOS/AFSCN/specialty code?

I'm saddened the ignorant remarks got modded "insightful" since that is the antithesis of how it should be classified.

Re:Soldiers Have a Hard Time Thinking for Themselv

An old joke from my Navy days might help illustrate what you're talking about:

One day, a CAPT was walking across a parade ground, when he noticed that a flag had wrapped itself around a flagpole. Spotting a nearby LCDR, he called out, "Commander! Get that flag fixed!"

"Aye, aye, sir!" replied the LCDR. Looking at hte flag, he couldn't figure out to accomplish the task. Spotting a nearby ENS, he called out, "Ensign! Get that flag fixed!"

"Aye, aye, sir!" replied the ENS. Likewise, when he looked at the pole he could no way to safely climb up and fix the flag. Spotting a nearby Chief, he called out "Chief, I need your help getting that flag fixed."

The salty Chief looked up at the flag, saw the problem, and told a nearby Seaman to get a ladder, climb up and fix the flag.

Later, the original CAPT saw the flag flying proudly once again. When he ran into the LCDR in the officer's club that night, he said "Thanks for getting that flag problem fixed, Commander. I knew I could count on you."

Nothing New

Plato or Aristotle, I forget which, described the paradox of the perfect soldier. An ideal soldier obeys his orders instantly and without question, but at the same time needs the ability to make good decisions in the absence of orders. How can a man be a mindless robot and at the same time think independently.

Re:Soldiers Have a Hard Time Thinking for Themselv

Wrong. I've been to Basic Combat Training, spend 4 years as enlisted man in combat units and then 12 years as an officer including being a training officer and temporary commander of a Basic Training unit. We don't weed out critical thinking. We harden people up, teach them to follow orders, and to fill in the gaps and get over the caveats.

What we teach them about following orders is, there are times for questions and there are times when you have to just do it; be intelligent about figuring out which one is which.

Re:Or that the people will bring them home...

Last time I checked these "Soldiers" or better Marines / Army / Navy / Air force. Signed up on the dotted line to protect the country. I greatly appreciate them and all they do. While signing on the line they knew or should have known it was not just a free ride to college or a job to just hang out with. If the country goes to war even if they don't agree with the war it IS there job to go fight it.
Not complain about it and refuse to be involved because they never thought they would have too shoot / kill someone.
Its called protecting the country and that is the job they agreed to.

I may not agree with some of the choices that upper management decides but I do not have the choice to decide to stay employed but choose not to do my job.

Re:Or that the people will bring them home...

Except that calling "invading Irak" protecting the US country is a *very big stretch*.

Except that its not the individual soldiers role to question that objective. The question of invading Iraq is a political question that needs to be handled by our civilian politicians. And, while you may think its a shame that the military didn't object more strongly, I personally think its a good thing. I'd much rather live in a state where the civilians control the military, rather than vice versa.

Re:Or that the people will bring them home...

Except that its not the individual soldiers role to question that objective.

If a soldier believes their orders to be illegal, then they should not obey them. Far more suffering in this world has been caused by soldiers obeying orders than by disobeying ones they felt were wrong or illegal.

The Nuremberg trials stated that a war of aggression is the supreme international crime, which differs from other war crimes in that it encompasses all the evil that follows. In the case of Iraq, what that means is that although the US and allies did not directly kill over a million Iraqis (Lancet and ORB surveys), the mere act of waging the war encompasses all the chaos and carnage that follows.

Re:Or that the people will bring them home...

Ah, a false dichotomy. A military refusing orders is hardly the same thing as a military that controls civilians. Have fun with that empty rhetoric.

Not really. Bush is elected. He ordered the military to invade Iraq. Civilian control over the military dictates that they have to do it. America has more serious enemies than Saddam and they would be emboldened if the military were not under civilian control. Soldiers not under control are a threat to a free society themselves too.

A future adminstration has to decide whether to keep the soldiers there or not, not the soldiers.