The War Of The Virtual Worlds

man_ls writes "The University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute is working with the U.S. Joint Forces Command to harness supercomputer power, to simulate a virtual continent for use in urban battlefield situations. The simulation, set in the year 2015, involves 100,000 entities to simulate, although the system can support more than a million."

What about the weapons?

[diablobsb]

Yeah yeah! but does it include the BFG?

I'm wondering...

[gustgr]

may I play age of empires on it?

Re:I'm wondering...

[ArsonSmith]

screw that, GTA all the way.

So there is a market

[Anonymous Coward]

for the SX-8 [slashdot.org]

Bush Mode

[Tablizer]

I switched it into G.W.Bush Mode, and ended up with a big charcoal sphere :-P

Re:Bush Mode

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

How strange: personally, when I switched to G.W.Bush Mode, I ended up choking on a pretzel...

Re:Bush Mode

[killjoe]

It looks like they are trying to make sure simulation handles a war with china. Then end result of that might just be a big charcoal sphere.

Remember..

[turboflux]

Keep your Sims happy!

Re:Remember..

[AndroidCat]

With that setup, think of how many swimming pool ladders they could remove with one command.

As Martin Luther King Jr. Once said:

[beppu]

I believe today that there is a need for all people of good will to come with a massive act of conscience and say in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "We ain't goin' study war no more." This is the challenge facing modern man.

Re:As Martin Luther King Jr. Once said:

[Planesdragon]

Dr. King's death is the ultimate rebuttal to his words as you quoted them.

Unless, of course, you consider his assassin a man of good will.

Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum

[Anonymous Coward]

Let him who desires peace prepare for war.
-- Vegetius

Re:As Martin Luther King Jr. Once said:

[deathcloset]

"We ain't goin' study war no more."

quite the opposite, I think. If we learn not history, well then are we not doomed to repeat it?

Ignorance is far from bliss - whomever came up with that saying was ignorant to the joy of knowledge, methinks.

Re:As Martin Luther King Jr. Once said:

[inKubus]

If we learn not history, well then are we not doomed to repeat it?

We learn from history than we can never learn anything from history.

Re:As Martin Luther King Jr. Once said:

[thomas.galvin]

"We ain't goin' study war no more."

quite the opposite, I think. If we learn not history, well then are we not doomed to repeat it?

And those of us who do learn are doomed to know it's repeating. C'est la vie, I suppose.

Re:As Martin Luther King Jr. Once said:

[killjoe]

The only thing we learn from history is that we don't learn from history.

Re:As Martin Luther King Jr. Once said:

[ashitaka]

Read the sig.

Too many are living in past assumptions about war.

Re:As Martin Luther King Jr. Once said:

[DNS-and-BIND]

Wasn't MLK assassinated by a man who didn't like the fact that he was speaking out?

Here's another quote for you:

"If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun."
-- The Dalai Lama

Very true

[Infonaut]

But also very, very difficult.

The unfortunate problem is that even if some are ready to give up the study of and preparation for war, others are not. I might be able to convince another American that it's a good idea, and I might even be able to convince a German or a Finn. But as an American how could I convince a Chetchen, or an Iranian, or a North Korean? Would their own leaders even want to convince them of the rightness of disarming? Leaders of "good will" have always been few and far between.

How can we all stop preparing for war? That is the challenge, but so far I've not encountered any plan that seems even remotely practical, given the cultural, ethnic, and religious schisms that divide people across the globe.

Re:Very true

[Koyaanisqatsi]

The failure with your reasoning is that you assume your side is righteous and would be willing to disarm and the other would not. Just as the *people* in those countries you mentioned is peacefull (in general), people in those so called *evil countries* is also (generally) peacefull.

And just as the leaders of the so called "evil countries" are (arguiably) evil, you will have to admit that your own king is also (arguiably) evil.

Bottom line? We're all the same: the idividual wants piece, but give him power

Re:Very true

[Infonaut]

Actually I was only using the example of Americans, Germans, Finns, etc. because there are some shared religous and cultural norms that would allow me as an American to convince one of these people as to the need for disarming. By the same token it would be difficult for a North Korean or Chechen to convince me of the need for disarmament.

My point was that for a wide variety of reasons it is difficult for the message of peace to pass through these religious and cultural walls. It becomes doubly difficult

Re:Very true

[Pentagram]

The unfortunate problem is that even if some are ready to give up the study of and preparation for war, others are not. I might be able to convince another Chechen that it's a good idea, and I might even be able to convince an Iranian or a North Korean. But as a Chechen how could I convince an American, or a German, or a Finn? Would their own leaders even want to convince them of the rightness of disarming? Leaders of "good will" have always been few and far between.

A. Chechen

The problem with preparing for war

[aepervius]

is that sometimes, you are so prepared that you feel the need to create your own war, out of various reason (religious, self righteousness, hidden WMD). A lot of people around here feel that the US long ago went beyond the "preparing for war" step and are way into the "being a master at crushing opponent mercilessly" and thus those other country feel the need to take "inssurance" that the US will not do war against them, for example by seeking out WMD themselves or targeting local population to make sure an

Re:Very true

[Infonaut]

I understand completely what you're saying. Yes, there are plenty of people who view the US as expansionist brutes. Believe it or not, a lot of Americans aren't interested in bombing people who have never been a threat to Americans.

But that sort of underlines my point. It's difficult to even get Americans to understand that bombing the crap out of people isn't always the smartest way to make the world a safer place. It's that difficult for me to convince the guy sitting next to me that invading Iraq wasn'

Re:Very true

[Jason Earl]

I spent my high school years as a Gringo in Peru. While I was there two of my Peruvian friends were killed by terrorists from Sendero Luminoso because they looked like the might be Americans. So excuse me if I have a strong opinion about this subject.

One of the things that I saw while I lived in Peru was that most Peruvians (as individuals) were as nice a people as you might want to meet. Most of the anti-American sentiment that existed in Peru, and there was a *lot* of it, was the direct result of manipulation by various Peruvian political leaders. Peru is a fairly screwed up country, and the political leaders there spend most of their time blaming their problems on the Devils in the United States. Now, I am not going to say that the U.S. hasn't forwarded some pretty bad South American foreign policies over the years, but Peru's major problems stem from rampant corruption of their own political system and not from any policy that the U.S. might have adopted. About the worst thing that U.S. has done in recent years is loan Peru money so that its corrupt leaders could waste it on gewgaws or leave the country with it. Despite the fact that Peru's problems are almost entirely of Peruvian manufacture the United States is every Peruvian politician's favorite scapegoat, and the Peruvian population is uneducated enough that they buy these lies wholesale.

As an example, at one point the government-sponsored TV station ran a totally bogus news story about a string of child abductions in which it was alleged that an American was running around Lima abducting children and stealing their corneas for sale in the U.S. I remember seeing one of these broadcasts on the news and the main graphic featured a silohuette with a question mark on its face backed by a U.S. flag (how they knew it was an American that was stealing the eyes was never told).

Months later one of the independent newspapers ran a story exposing the "Gringo saca ojos" story as a complete fraud, but by then the damage had been done. Heck, my father's SUV was actually attacked by a mob in downtown Lima, and the only thing that saved him was A) he spoke Spanish, and B) he had two of my little sisters in the SUV with him. He was finally able to calm the crowd down by pointing out that he was a father as well, and that he had his two little girls in the car with him. As it was quite a bit of damage was done to the car, and the incident scared the heck out of my entire family.

So what's the point to all this? The point is that it doesn't matter that the people in a country are sane if the people in power in their country are not sane. Most people believe what they are told, even cynical and well-educated people like the average American. If Peruvians are told by the government that America is responsible for their problems, then a lot of them are going to believe it. On a similar note if Moslems around the world are told that America is "the great Satan" by their religious leaders then no amount of positive PR is likely to make the average Moslem disbelieve that. America is a big target, and we make more than our share of mistakes, but much of the hatred for America is nothing more than shrewd political maneuvering. America is the enemy that all sorts of political leaders use to rally the uneducated and ill-informed into their causes.

My grandfather was an missionary for the LDS church (the Mormons) right before WWII. He barely escaped Germany with his life. A few years later he was back in Europe with a U.S. bomber squadron blasting the life out of people that just a few years earlier he had been teaching about Jesus Christ. My Grandfather loved the German people, but for whatever reason they let themselves get put into a position where the folks running the country were insane and dangerous, and so for the sake of the rest of the world he volunteered to blast Germans to bits, many of them complete innocents. Since the German people were unwilling to remove the threat that Hitler represented by themselves, my g

Re:Very true: Talk about Chechen?

[Infonaut]

Hey, I'm not arguing with you. I have read plenty about the atrocities in Chechnia. I resent the assertion that everyone in the United States thinks they know everything. Only Bush, Rumsfeld and the neocons think they know everything. I certainly don't know everything, and I get as much of my news from abroad as possible.

My point was simply that people in very different circumstances, with very different history and religion and societies have a difficult time even talking about peace.

The experience of

Re:Very true

[Infonaut]

Does Switzerland [admin.ch] prepare for war or not?

Re:As Martin Luther King Jr. Once said:

[Lord_Dweomer]

The real challenge comes in making sure everybody goes along with it. If all the good natured people were to stop studying war, we would be defenseless if the ill-natured people were to want to conquer us.

Re:As Martin Luther King Jr. Once said:

[hunterx11]

Someday, someone will create a board so large with a nail so sharp that you will destroy yourselves!

Re:As Martin Luther King Jr. Once said:

[Kaa]

I believe today that there is a need for all people of good will to come with a massive act of conscience and say in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "We ain't goin' study war no more." This is the challenge facing modern man.

The very obvious consequence of this would be that all people of good will will get the shit kicked out of them by people of ill will who do not seem to have a problem studying war.

Re:As Martin Luther King Jr. Once said:

[Lust]

But perhaps this should be part of a miliary college or proper government organization rather than masked as an acedemic endevor by an institution such as USC? I think you'll find most computer scientists involved in this work are happy to receive funding / support of DOD, regardless of the purpose of the work.

I find it amusing that universities will quickly turn down funding from cigarette companies because it is dirty money while military funding is fair game.

Oh, and by the way...we've done alot of the

And as Mr. Miyagi once said:

[wass]

(really through a dialog):

Daniel : Hey - you ever get into fights when you were a kid?
Miyagi : Huh - plenty.
Daniel : Yeah, but it wasn't like the problem I have, right?
Miyagi : Why? Fighting fighting. Same same.
Daniel : Yeah, but you knew karate.
Miyagi : Someone always know more.
Daniel : You mean there were times when you were scared to fight?
Miyagi : Always scare. Miyagi hate fighting.
Daniel : Yeah, but you like karate.
Miyagi : So?
Daniel : So, karate's fighting. You train to fight.
Miyagi : That what you think?
Daniel : [pondering] No.
Miyagi : Then why train?
Daniel : [thinks] So I won't have to fight.
Miyagi : [laughs] Miyagi have hope for you.

Re:As Martin Luther King Jr. Once said:

[wattersa]

Evil will always triumph because good is dumb.
- Dark Helmet, Spaceballs

I wish it were possible to not study war. Of course I would prefer it if everyone went about his business (his because it's usually the male population) without feeling the need to dominate other people or extract money from them or capture them as human slaves. As one of the militia leaders said in Black Hawk Down, "there will always be killing. This is how things are in _our_ world." The main benefit of having a highly trained

Re:Or as the good book said:

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Thou shalt not kill. No exceptions given, not even for self-defense.

Re:Or as the good book said:

[drlake]

If you're going to quote the Old Testament, at least be accurate. The Hebrew in Exodus 20:13 is more consistent with "Thou Shalt Not Commit Murder." It's just frequently translated as "kill", even though the rest of the Old Testament makes a mockery of that translation.

Re:Or as the good book said:

[pjt33]

Actually, Torah provided for protection of those who killed another without malice aforethought. See Deut 19:1-13 (KJV [gospelcom.net], NIV [gospelcom.net]).

Re:Or as the good book said:

[Jason Earl]

That's hilarious. You clearly need to re-read the Old Testament. On several ocassions the Lord commanded the Israelites to destroy every man woman and child in a city. On at least one ocassion (I'm not a Biblical scholar) Saul was even commanded to kill all of the animals in a city. Saul got in trouble because he decided that instead of destroying perfectly good animals that he would use them as sacrifices.

Perhaps you should have quoted the New Testament.

Re:Or as the good book said:

[killjoe]

Salt the earth so that not even the crops can grow back. That old yahveh was one hell of mean and venegeful son of a bitch. He didn't think anything of wiping out the entire planet except for noah and his familiy.

Re:Or as the good book said:

[TedTschopp]

Yeah, and most middle of the road Christians today think he is the same God that's still around, its just that he's saving up his pissed off attitude for one last go around before he brings it all to an end. Some of the more conservative Christians would call it delayed gratification on His part, and there is a bit of truth in that position.

Ted Tschopp

Re:Or as the good book said:

[wattersa]

Thou shalt not kill. No exceptions given, not even for self-defense.

A passage cited by every pacifist, or by any person against a particular war (when it suits him). That no exceptions were given in that commandment implies a false dichotomy of "kill and go to hell" or "don't kill and not go to hell." I disagree. The "murder" translation of that commandment is probably a better one, else how could God endorse a war by the Israelites in self-defense?

wargames?

[eobanb]

This reminds me of Wargames. In case you haven't seen it, it involved a 'supercomputer' that could play out various scenarios leading up to a nuclear war. In the end the computer figured out that, like the game tic-tac-toe, if both sides were even remotely intelligent, there was no way for either side to win.

Re:wargames?

[Gr8Apes]

Reminds me more of one of several Star Trek episodes, namely the one where two worlds had computerized war and the people would be "dead" and walk over to the "vaporization" chamber.

Re:wargames?

[snuf23]

That would be episode 23 "A Taste of Armageddon". One of the best Star Trek episodes of all time in my opinion.
The computers simulated the attacks and calculated the casualties. When you number was called up you headed over to the handy dandy vaporization chamber. Of course the girl Kirk is hot for gets her number called up and well lets just say there is a great speech about how war is meant to be ugly and brutal. The sanitized, computer controlled war was indefinate with no end in sight.

Re:wargames?

[Coryoth]

What a sad state Slashdot has come to when someone (with a remarkably high UID I note) uses the phrase "In case you haven't seen it" With respect to the film Wargames.

This is Slashdot - you used to be able to assume everyone would have seen Wargames. I don't know whether this is a dilution of the geek quotient here, or a sign that the Slashdot audience is now made up of 15 year olds, but I fear for Slashdot's future.*

Jedidiah

* Not really, Slashdot went to hell a long time ago, but it still provides amus

Re:wargames?

[Ironsides]

It also assumes that the countries are launching nukes from their own soil and care if there country gets turned into a glass parking lot (Hence, MAD[Mutually Assured Distruction]). This also does not work when you do not know where the nuke has come from.

Re:wargames?

[DNS-and-BIND]

The WOPR dealt exclusively with NUCLEAR war. MAD doesn't apply to countries who train and export suicide bombers.

That's nothing

[antifoidulus]

When Duke Nukem Forever comes out, everyone's computer will be able to handle millions of bodies!

Re:That's nothing

[daeley]

You heard about the sequel, right? Duke Nukem Forever and Ever?

Re:That's nothing

[Mr. Bad Example]

> When Duke Nukem Forever comes out, everyone's computer will be able to handle millions of bodies!

Computer? Big deal. I can personally handle millions of bodies now.

Disclaimer: Number of bodies handled may be subject to restraining order limitations.

The hard part

[moorcito]

Now the hard part is convincing everyone that real-life wars are outdated and we should start using the virtual battlefield.

Re:The hard part

[AndroidCat]

Wars will still be costly with this virtual battlefield. Think of all the quarters needed to play!

wow

[WormholeFiend]

to simulate a virtual continent for use in urban battlefield situations

That's one big fucking city.

Re:wow

[SpiffyMarc]

They're simulating the Clone Wars breaking out on Coruscant.

You can also find...

[AviLazar]

this article on Wired News [wired.com]

It's the smell!

[centauri]

Word to the wise: don't make this virutal world too perfect. Entire crops could be lost.

And in the future

[aicrules]

the search for WMD is as simple as:
SELECT w.GPSCoordinates
FROM Weapons w
WHERE w.DestructionType = 'Mass'
AND w.Owner 'United States'

a more telling output

[wattersa]

$ psql world_arms;

Welcome to psql 7.3.6-RH, the PostgreSQL interactive terminal.

world_arms=# SELECT countries.shortform, count(wmd.serialno) as total_wmds from countries, wmd where countries.idx = wmd.owner order by total_wmds desc;

shortform | total_wmds

United States of America 354,757
Russian Federation 241,095
United Kingdom 17,120
France 2,043
China 2,021
India 346
Pakistan 299
Israel 170
...
Iraq 0

world_arms=# \q

$ mail [e-mail] -s "You're full of shit"
You lied to the American public and th

Harsh Realm

[rve]

Reminds me of this
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0182587/ [imdb.com]

Reminds me of "A Taste of Armageddon"

[nz_mincemeat]

...as in the ST:TOS episode.

Now where are the casaulty units? :p

Re:Reminds me of "A Taste of Armageddon"

[Arcturax]

Also reminds me a little of that Dr. Who episode where the people of Atrios were fighting a losing war and it turned out they were fighting a dead planet who's fleets were all controlled by a war computer.

Re:Reminds me of "A Taste of Armageddon"

[Mr. Bad Example]

> Reminds me of "A Taste of Armageddon"

Interestingly enough, "Armageddon" comes from "Har-Meggido", meaning roughly "tastes kind of like chicken".

Tax dollar at work

[DrAmes]

Notice the minimized browser in the bottom screenshot?

Re:Tax dollar at work

[DrAmes]

I've actually worked with that simulator before -- bad collision detection is probably the least of it's worries.

Re:Tax dollar at work

[jericho4.0]

Collision detection has come a long way since you last looked. :-) Smarter algorithims don't check every object against every other, usually using a binary-tree or something to keep things orginized.

In the context of this game, collision detection is not needed, as it is simulating larger scale stratagy.

More specific scenario needed

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead of good guys and bad guys, they need a simulator where you are this military force propping up a hugely unpopular puppet government. You can go on missions with the puppet government's national guard, but you can't send in their national guard by themselves or they'll ally with the "bad guys".

And maybe a scoring system where if you have to keep troops there to support the government against its people indefinitely, you get no points, if the puppet government turns into a repressive dictatorship, you get one point, if the people overthrow the government and replace it with a fundamentalist theocracy, you get 2 points, and if you're right in the middle of a big urban street battle with the bad guys and you get a message that says "your capital was just nuked by a country you've been paying no attention to at all", you lose.

No, actually, that'd suck. Nevermind.

2015 ?

[Jesrad]

How peculiar... This is exactly the year that John Titor predicted as the explosion of the US Civil War into a full-blown WW3. ::dons tin-foil hat::

wanna make it really cool?

[Anonymous Cowpat]

hook it up to America's Army. A 100,000 player MMOFPS/RTS, with a command structure, a continent to fight over and no modular missions. A big-picture, constantly changing war. Wanna make it even cooler? have new technology appear every few years, have the ammount of new weapons you can build related to how much of the land/natural resources you control - have things built on percentages, not just numerical limits.
Of course, the thing is that this just becomes a big computer game rather than a military tra

Re:wanna make it really cool?

[xsupergr0verx]

Apparantly you don't play many games online in public servers. A character named "GOATSE!" always runs into a group of teammates and shoots an anti-tank rocket directly into the ground, or equivalent.

I always wondered.

[Lumpy]

why the US govt does not use sometihng like the american army game to test tactics and run simulations and train on..

some of the tactics I hear about in IRAQ I know I have used in counterstrike years ago.

the FPS gamer is one of the greatest resources of tactical study.. add in a prize for a team that can push out the blue team from the fortress and you just trained your soldiers in the blue team in real combat technique.

Re:I always wondered.

[Prof.Phreak]

...but, in games, folks aren't afraid of death. Ie: I woudln't object going on suicide run if my team wins in a _game_... but I wouldn't do that in real life.

Re:I always wondered.

[jericho4.0]

Because FPS gamers can't carry packs. They don't have the shoulders for it.

Seriously, you're mostly right. A week of playing counterstrike teaches you what works(mostly), and what doesn't (always) work. It teaches you to think where the enemy might be, rather where you last saw him, and to be aware of cover, escape routes, sight lines, etc.

Needs some work...

[Serious Simon]

Some of the vehicles have very complex behavior sets, but even the simple 'bots "know" how fast to go on which roads, to turn corners, to avoid collisions and to stay on the roads,

Hmmm. On this picture [isi.edu] there are several cars that have seriously run into each other, and at least one that swerved off the side of the road...

I hear...

[mdxi]

...that this is gonna be one of the launch titles for the PlayStation 3. Mmm, clusterfragging...

100k?

[Lord_Dweomer]

100k entities? Battlefield:1942 eat your heart out.

Seriously though, this is good for gamers, because this technology will inevitably end up in our games. Planetside tried to make a FPS with that many players, and while their cone of fire killed it (among other things), I definitely see FPSs going in that direction in the future, especially with the increasing availability of broadband.

I've always wanted to have large historic battles, but since the numbers of soldiers were so large back then, it wasn't really feasible for a FPS, but now perhaps they could do it after all. Can you say Battle of Helms Deep with every character being a real person?

Re:100k?

[Kaa]

I've always wanted to have large historic battles, but since the numbers of soldiers were so large back then, it wasn't really feasible for a FPS, but now perhaps they could do it after all.

It's still not feasible for an FPS primarily because not many people are interested in playing as peon #27419 who gets to stand in one place for an hour or so and then gets killed by a canon shot/cavalry charge/etc.

But for an RTS this works well. Check out the TotalWar series of games, especially the latest Rome: Tota

Re:100k?

[Feanturi]

Can you say Battle of Helms Deep with every character being a real person?

I can see it now:

G1mli: I roxxor dude!! 27!

L3g0las: You teh suxxor!! 29!!!!

Gimlet: 38 over here!

Legolamb: Ph3ar me, 40!!

etc etc

A bit too late?

[mobiux]

"One experiment in this series, "Urban Resolve," began October 12. Set in the year 2015, in JFCOM's description, "it involves a U.S.-led coalition force that must confront and overcome a skilled adversary who is equipped with modern capabilities and is operating in an urban environment." "

Don't ya think they got this running about a year too late? Might have been helpful in this other thing going on in the meat world.

I'm not sure

[chaffed]

But is this the average population of a United States city?

Then again I can't imagine bush holding on to power for that long.

Mod +1 for paranoid

How about

[phrenq]

How about a nice game of chess?

Still no cure for cancer

[Cryofan]

and still no cure for the idiocy that afflicts American minds so they we let the military industrial complex and the religious nuts control what we do with our tax dollars.

Heaven forbid we stop riling up the Muslim world, leave them in peace, and instead concentrate on curing diseases that kill thousands.

3000 Americans died in WTC 911. But every day 5000 Americans die, many of cancer and heart disease...

Lunacy....

Re:Still no cure for cancer

[killjoe]

We can't leave the muslims alone, they control a part of what is israel. Israel must be in the control of the jews before the prophesies can be fulfilled and jesus comes back.

That's what this war is all about. Laying the groundwork for the return or jesus. God has chosen G.W Bush as his instrument in facilitating the return of jesus.

Re:Still no cure for cancer

[bnenning]

Heaven forbid we stop riling up the Muslim world

Certain members of the Muslim world are riled up because we allow women to drive cars.

3000 Americans died in WTC 911. But every day 5000 Americans die, many of cancer and heart disease...

Everybody dies eventually. (Although I support anti-aging research to possibly correct that). There's a huge difference between dying of natural causes and being randomly blown up by lunatics. A nuclear bomb detonated in a major city could kill a million or so directly,

Re:Still no cure for cancer

[enjo13]

How does throwing money make a cure magically appear? Do you think we haven't cured cancer because god feels like we haven't spent enough on it yet?

Our obsession with military and military technology may be a bit scary, but it's not an either/or for curing cancer or anything else for that matter. Cancer research has a LOT of funding, and very little success to show for it.

Distributed?

[DogDude]

What I want to know is do they need distributed computing clients? I mean, why would I want my extra CPU cycles to work on finding life outside of this planet or curing disease when I can help with WAR?!?!

Software and IT, come and get it.

[Politicus]

Could this be the start of a national subsidy to the Software and IT industries ala aerospace and agribusiness?

This is a bad idea.

[Jookey]

This simulation sounds like a bad idea. As with any mathamatecal model, it is only as good as the assumptions made, regardless of the resolution. This is exactly the kind of thinking that screwed us up in vietnam. Our foregn policy was being decided by mathmaticians when it should have been decided by historians. I get the impression this is planning for the next Faluja. Our problems in Iraq are not due to bad tactics, they are caused by bad strategy. I dont care how well your soldiers are trained; in

New acronym...

[TrevorB]

I guess we have a new acronym now..

MMMRPG: Massive Multiplayer Mainframe Role Playing Game.

Perhaps thats the noise the simulated people make when you frag them...

MMMRPG! (thud)

Public Policy Simulator Needed

[Felgerkarb]

While I think this is pretty cool, even if only for the 'gee whiz' factor, and I think anything that maintains and supports military preparedness is a good thing (especially if it can be done virtually), I think this is missing the point.

I don't think the issue is that the U.S. Military is losing wars, or is somehow not prepared tactically/strategically speaking (though funding and morale may be an issue). I mean, the initial stages of the conflict in Iraq were a military success. Similarly, Afghanistan was a successful military action. This simulator will not address the political/economic/ethnic/religious realities that have to be addressed after the fighting stops.

So, if this helps plan for urban combat, and potentially reduce military and civilian casualties, it's a great thing. But, ultimately, the U.S. has no trouble winning wars.....if I may borrow a cliched phrase, the problem is winning the peace.

For an interesting analysis on the logistics of 'nation building', please see this recently completed report. [rand.org]

Simulate some integrity

[vandan]

It's a pity someone in the US can't simulate some integrity.

With the 2 mainstream presidential candidates fighting over who is tougher on terrorism and how many more soldiers to deploy, it's little wonder ther rest of the world is becoming increasingly alarmed and anti-American.

If the money the US spent on so-called 'defense' were put towards addressing some of the gross injustices ( 3rd world debt, Palestine, multinationals 'acquiring' the world's resources at the expense of practically everyone ), there

Hmmm...

[Reteo Varala]

Otherworld, by Tad Williams, comes to mind when reading this one...

Re:Uh oh

[ryanmfw]

Well, while that's possible, it's unimportant. I'm glad our military is doing this after all. We wouldn't want to get caught without skilled commanders, or even modern strategy. Before World War 2, France had the largest army in Europe, yet it managed to lose because German generals(specifically Guderian) pioneered new strategies. Most people don't think about this, at least Americans, but there are other armies out there that are advanced too. Maybe not as powerful, but still there. We need to stay focused

Re:Uh oh

[Pompatus]

We need to stay focused on keeping the lead, instead of relaxing on our supposed invincibility.

Here's some statistics from wikipedia....

The United States military budget is larger than the military budgets of the next twenty biggest spenders combined, and six times larger than Russia's, which places second. The United States and its close allies are responsible for approximately two-thirds of all military spending on Earth (of which, in turn, the U.S. is responsible for two-thirds), dollar for dollar.

Re:Uh oh

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

I suppose we should be happy that they're actually going to prepare for the next war.

"prepare"? They're not preparing for anything, they're warmonging. That's a case of war creation more than anything else...

Re:Power of Supercomputing

[KrackHouse]

I think you're confusing the governments with the people. Remember the tank guy during the massacre? How is that not a value we should admire? It's easier to justify collateral damage if you can just call them a bunch of wacky commies. You classify Islam as an "external hostility". My advice to you is READ a freaking booK(other than the King James version of the bible). An encyclopedia would be a good start.

Your post is well written but wrong. Broad generalizations are a sure sign of ignorance.

Re:Power of Supercomputing

[focitrixilous P]

Broad generalizations are a sure sign of ignorance.

There is irony in this somewhere. Not that I disagree, but the irony is painfully obvious in statements like that.

All general statements are false, including this one.

Re:Power of Supercomputing

[KrackHouse]

Hey that's a good point. I sound sort of hypocritical. :) Though it would make for a good Yogi Berra esque quote.

Re:Power of Supercomputing

[DNS-and-BIND]

Get bent. I live in China right now, and personal connections (guanxi), monopolies, oppression of minorities, and a totally unfree media are exactly what exist here. Get outside your home country once in a lifetime, and see what's outside. Parochial twit.

Re:Power of Supercomputing

[Rayonic]

> On another note, I really recommend reading "Forever Peace" - it's a brillaint look at how technological superiority isn't necesarily useful.

You really got your ideals from a cheesy sci-fi novel with a message to push?

I guess some people really dig the idea of perpetual (and literal) "class warfare", and endorse the idea of forcible brain-washing for everyone. Sheesh.

Re:You do know that the US lost the war gaming

[Anonymous Coward]

And when the US general in charge of the iraqi side did use tactics such as this, killing a lot of US troops, the generals for the US side declared it null and void and ordered the troops back to life.

That's not true at all, but it is based on a real incident. In the Iraq war game, the Iraq side managed to sink the US aircraft carriers.

They did this by driving up in small boats filled with dynamite. In real life, there would be sailors on deck to shoot those attackers. In the wargame, they didn't use

Re:Any other ideas besides war?!?

[Jubedgy]

This is an application developed specifically for the military. The military must remain trained, and it is far easier (and cheaper) to do it in simulation rather than try and do it in real life.

Just because our military ensures it is well-trained does NOT mean our country is focused on war. The purpose of our military is to protect US (assuming you are an American citizen). Would you want an untrained police force fighting crime? An untrained fire department fighting fires? An untrained surgeon opera