A Marine's-Eye View of the Networked Battlefield 205
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 (Score:5, Interesting)
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Actually, there is a lot of work going on to bring these sorts of systems to logistics. Autonomous Logistics systems on the platforms to report back fuel, ammunition and maintenance requirements; systems to automate the flow of logistics requests both within and between services; software to tie the weapon system maintenance manuals directly to the procurement systems to automate ordering; program to improve visibility to facilitate smarter forward positioning of materiel, etc.
Some of this is fielded, but a
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Huh? I refuse to break common semantics [thefreedictionary.com] because of American military jargon. A soldier is someone serving in AN army, not THE army, to the rest of the world. Whatever we term them per specific branch doesn't change the fact that they all are soldiers.
Its like the PC newspeak thing ("personhole covers", etc...), except for the military.
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Huh? I refuse to break common semantics [thefreedictionary.com] because of American military jargon. A soldier is someone serving in AN army, not THE army, to the rest of the world. Whatever we term them per specific branch doesn't change the fact that they all are soldiers.
Its like the PC newspeak thing ("personhole covers", etc...), except for the military.
Apparently you forgot to lookup WTF Army means [thefreedictionary.com], otherwise you'd know that a Marine IS NOT a soldier!!!
To throw you a bone, since I'm sure you're still lost: Did you see the key word "land" as pertaining to the Army?
Semper Fi.
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Er... From your ending "Semper Fi", I'm guessing you were/are a Marine, so can you tell me if you were, or were not trained in land warfare? Most of the Marines I know fought on the ground, actually ALL of them (who saw combat, of course).
Even the Air Force and Navy has basic land war training, not as much as the Army and Marines, of course, but there still is a degree of it.
Splitting hairs, ftw!
I'm sorry, the term "warfighter" doesn't sound right, it sounds rather forced. Firefox's spell checker doesn't
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If the Generals have enough time to be micromanaging individual operations...
Maybe there are too many Generals?
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Or perhaps the ones that are there are incompetent. After all, you've still got the possibility that these generals are ignoring wider aspects of their in favor or micromanaging the bits that they consider interesting.
Not all it's cracked up to be? (Score:5, Insightful)
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? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Re:Not all it's cracked up to be? (Score:4, Interesting)
The "information age" groundwarrior has tools that are slightly different, because we're talking about advances in communication and information. Out of all the examples you mention, probably the second most relevant is that of airplanes, since they were originally invaluable for recon, and eventually important for many other reasons. That is, they greatly increased the information available in near real-time for field commanders. The most relevant would be radios in tanks, since that allowed instant communication.
Like any organization looking to make use of instant communication tools, the military needs to work out the kinks in its delegation scheme, and determine when the tools are more a hindrance than a harm.
I may oversee a lot of work in India, but I get annoyed as hell when I get 20 IMs an hour asking for guidance on trivialities... so I delegated some of the authority to local staff. Now we are more efficient, but I still have sufficient oversight.
In other words, it's more about how it is used than whether the tools are problematic.
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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.
I keep thinking of a cellphone with a visor output to overlay text, graphics, google maps, or what not. It doesn't even have to be a mi
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I keep thinking of a cellphone with a visor output to overlay text, graphics, google maps, or what not. It doesn't even have to be a military app. I read alittle about google's software plans for cellphones in Wired. What if some one decided to use a cell phone as an interface for a FPS MMO that's GPS enabled and is designed to form flash mobs? If something like that was the next WOW, then maybe in 5-10 years you could have something that the military would find useful.
Assume you could use blue tooth to tie in your real-life military hardware like guns or some medical monitoring and upload video, and if you suddenly have a medical alert or start shooting your weapon, then everyone on your local team could have a mini clip of what you were looking at/shooting at, and exactly where you were and maybe a mini map so that they could find you in an urban environment that they've never actually visited before.
In the original Commanche Overkill game, a chopper flight sim, you had a weapon called "artillery." You target a large formation of enemy units and "fire" this weapon, what you actually did was bounce a laser off the target, do some math based on your GPS coordinates, and sent a fire mission off to the local fire-base all with the pull of a trigger.
So, what would it be like if mortar crews could get fire missions from the field like this? Private Pyle is on patrol, his fire support has already been configu
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But I have to agree with the other poster here who said it was very worrisome that US military scenarios for the near future are anticipating irregular, guerrilla-style warfare with fighters drawn from the local population. To put it another way, "we're in countries where the locals don't want us and we're doing shit they don't want us to do. In other words, we're invaders." Defending democracy my white ass, that's fucking imperialism through and through.
You could just say that they are practicing on foreig
Re:Not all it's cracked up to be? (Score:5, Interesting)
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However, allowing them to be able to request artillery fire and air support is pretty handy. 'Network-enabled' might seem a little over the top until you remember that your air support is now coming out of Las Vegas regardless of where you are in the world as that's where the UAVs are operated from.
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Not to worry—this is the U.S. Army we're talking about. In the U.S. Army, information always flows up, never down. So there's no danger that the "networked soldier of the future" will be awash in too much information. Instead, he'll be deluged with the stuff that does flow down the pipes of command...orders.
Yes, I realize that's the w
Like with a GPS (Score:5, Interesting)
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
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When I need a laugh, I turn mine on and ask it to give me directions to places around my city, or directions to some of the small towns nearby.
On the other hand, the GPS box isn't a person, and it certainly isn't higher than me in a military chain of command. The real problem, as the summary mentions, is micromanagement. The guys on the ground need information so that they can make their own decisions, and they need us (yes, us, the people who aren't there) to back them up when they make rea
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You are off route
Please turn around
Turn left at the next intersection, then turn left
Do you wish to recalcuate your route [Y/N]
GPS devices should have the following phase added:
Clearly you're not following my directions, so you're on your fscking own
...ha
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On the other hand, the GPS box isn't a person, and it certainly isn't higher than me in a military chain of command. The real problem, as the summary mentions, is micromanagement. The guys on the ground need information so that they can make their own decisions, and they need us (yes, us, the people who aren't there) to back them up when they make reasonable decisions, even if they are sometimes wrong.
Actually, we just need to develop the right RTS game interface for generals to actually micromanage their t
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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
Likewise, trying to watch a show in English with French subtitles (I'm French) and trying to read the subtitles at the same time as keeping up with what's being said impairs my understanding of what goes on because I can't be concentrated enough to understand the English and read the French at the same time. Hence why now that my understanding of English has reached such a level that I understand everything I hear under ideal conditions that I try to ignore the subtitles more than anything else.
Concentrat
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News at 11 generally means PM, it's the last news broadcast for a local station until the morning news.
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News at 11 (by the way, I've always wondered, does that expression mean 11 AM or PM? I only hear it in shows so I get too little a context to be able to tell).
PM. At 11 AM, everyone was traditionally at work so they wouldn't be able to watch any 11 AM news.
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Excellent point which I think exactly sums up the problem described in the article in a way most of us can relate to.
I think the solution to the problem is the same I had when first using a GPS. I would miss turns, almost run a red light, turn too early, make turns down streets that I wouldn't normally drive down, all cause the gps was really distracting in its precision. Moreover, I missed lots of roadsigns, didn't have the same focus I did normally when trying to memorize where I'm going or pay attention
Vietnam redux? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Vietnam redux? (Score:5, Interesting)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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It's an oversight vice insight dilemma. While insight into tactical actions may be valuable for battle planners, their requests for information rapidly degenerate into oversight. Tactical commanders, understanding this, reduce upward information flow to formal language and CYA reports sabotaging the intent of modern battlefield comm.
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It's an oversight vice insight dilemma. While insight into tactical actions may be valuable for battle planners, their requests for information rapidly degenerate into oversight. Tactical commanders, understanding this, reduce upward information flow to formal language and CYA reports sabotaging the intent of modern battlefield comm.
The quote of the day appearing below your comment is very appropriate.
If I can have honesty, it's easier to overlook mistakes. -- Kirk, "Space Seed", stardate 3141.9
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There was a common sentiment of not wanting to second-guess the man in the field thousands of miles away.
They'd have had todays micromanagement problems if they had radio or any form of communication that is about as speedy as radio. If back home could get local newspaper reports of what their military was doing within 24 hours, then public or government policy might have changed and new orders be issued to the captain the next day. The
Captain was only god on ship because civilization was far away and the s
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Even in these days of instant communication, the Navy still has a strong tradition of independent action. "It's easier to get forgiveness than permission" is still the operating phrase (to my knowledge, I retired a year or so ago). But my sense is that this is a much bigger problem for the Army - from the outside looking in, it seems that they are very dependent on guidance from "higher".
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There's been an argument that the British Navy was successful because of mechanisms for monitoring captains [www.sfu.ca]. Lieutenants, for example, kept their own logs which could be reviewed by the captain's superiors.
Barbara Tuchman's book, _The First Salute_, has lots of anecdotes of captains getting court-martialed for not following orders, even when the orders were internally contradictory.
Guns of the Patriots (Score:2, Funny)
Obligatory StarCraft remark (Score:5, Funny)
NO WAY!
My experience with StarCraft, a 'real-time strategy' simulator, taught me that micromanagement was the KEY to winning!!
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Maybe if you play Protoss, but certainly not if you play Zerg.
Ability of a human to multi-task (Score:2, Informative)
I wonder about the ability of a soldier to effectively multi-task. Not only is he in charge of his safety and that of his buddies, but also facing an enemy trying to kill him, and then having to lug around all this electronic stuff occasionally providing manual input into it. I have a tough enough time handling email/cell phone/my job daily I cannot imagine how difficult it is for the modern warrior.
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email? (Score:3, Funny)
Too Much Mutlitasking? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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Re:Too Much Mutlitasking? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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The "Colonial Marines" in the movie Aliens (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm the only one a bit worried... (Score:2, Insightful)
From TFA: The prototypical "enemy" of the twenty-first century is an urban guerilla who is mobile, adaptive, and draws his strength and resources primarily from the indigenous population. (emphasis mine)
If the prototypical enemy of the US these days is backed by the indigenous population, then the US is not "liberating" anyone.
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With Soldier Radio and WNW, comm will jump again (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Locals (Score:3, Insightful)
I see lots of IMing with HQ but not much talking to the local people. That's why the war is being lost.
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I guess that depends on the definition of "won". If we leave behind a stable, friendly government that can manage it's internal affairs without outside intervention, that's "won". I see small incremental improvements by this definition. Not winning by a landslide, but not losing either.
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Enigma: WW II Germans micro-managed. (Score:3, Insightful)
The book The Ultra Secret addressed this. Berlin's micro-management was enabled by Radio & the Enigma machine.
Wehrmacht were hen-pecked, details demanded, encrypted, transmitted. Allan Turing helped decrypt. Allies found it helpful.
Not a good trend... (Score:2)
One of the things that used to distinguish American troops from those of other country's armed forces was the level of decision making that was allowed at the lower ranks. I think the phrase I heard was something like "an American sargeant makes the same kind of decisions that normally requires a colonel in the [fill in country name here] army". The idea being that that sort of delegation (and trust) made for a much flexible and responsive force than the more hierarchical, all-decisions-flow-from-the-top ar
A Grain of Salt (Score:2, Insightful)
Am I the only one who is wary of jumping to conclusions based on the assessment, and anecdotal evidence of a single soldier?
I supported a software development lab at one point, and we tightened controls at one point to help the build process. The developers got frustrated, and it stressed them out, but the fact was that after months of failures, nightly builds began to be successful.
In the same way, I know that I have often complained about changes made by management that make my job more frustrating.
Lack of experience shows (Score:2)
It might be helpful for Mr. Boudreau to spend less time 'analyzing' and more time learning the history of the field he is pontificating about - because frankly he really doesn't know what he is talking about. The only difference between his experience in Iraq and past times is that the communications in question (especially between himself and higher echelons) took place via email.
Particularly galling is his statement "Commanders can no longer grab their men by the collars of their flak jackets and
Echos of Vietnam (Score:2)
We had commanding officers sitting back in the States looking at overhead imagery, dishing out orders to the troops and that cost us dearly.
The military spent years trying to get away from that mentality and the Age of Information threatens to raise the head of that specter again.
Keep in mind that the White House drove most of the air strikes and movements over the phone after looking at hours- or days-old photos. The time differences, and local conditions got a lot of good people killed. This new speed tha
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Re:Soldiers Have a Hard Time Thinking for Themselv (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Re:Soldiers Have a Hard Time Thinking for Themselv (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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Except that it was the military who armed the Hunters long before the CIA armed any Predators.
Not that I disagree with your point, the military needs both thinking and unthinking combat "equipment" but trying to deny they have any responsibility for weaponizing "autonomous" combat vehicles is slightly inaccurate.
Re:Soldiers Have a Hard Time Thinking for Themselv (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:4, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Funny)
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."
On appropriate work assignment (Score:2)
This joke is a metaphor for a lot of stuff that goes on in the Navy, but I'm not sure what's funny about it. The LCDR DID get the flag problem fixed. He looked at the problem, assigned the right people to it, and the job got done. Of course, when offered praise from the CAPT, he should have been sure to point out that the seaman did the actual fixing and deserved credit for it. The beauty of the situation is that there's no limited supply of praise - the entire chain of command can and should get credit for
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(Yeah my mum's a bit clueless on things military
As an infantry corporal - I just yelled at them myself - before the officer showed up to notice.
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"and if the orders are illegal, to not follow them"
I'm not sure whether to make a poignant remark about the impossibility of jarheads weighing up the legality of complex scenarios in realtime, or to make a joke about sending all our lawyers to the front line.
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I'm sure inflicting that many lawyers at once on the enemy would violate a Geneva convention or something...
Nothing New (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Soldiers Have a Hard Time Thinking for Themselv (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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labmonkey09 is dead on. Turn off your TV and stop parroting everything it tells you about the "real world".
One thing labmonkey09 forgot to mention is that critical thinking skills are in fact taught during basic.
Love,
A veteran
Or that the people will bring them home... (Score:3, Informative)
You know, so they won't have to kill a human being for a cause they don't agree with.
Someday they'll have robot soldiers...but not today.
Re:Or that the people will bring them home... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Except that calling "invading Irak" protecting the US country is a *very big stretch*.
Note, this isn't restricted to the US: French soldiers died fighting against Germany invasion but also invading colonies, calling an invasion 'protecting' your home country is plain bullshit (unless of course the other country is planning to attack you which wasn't the case in both the examples I gave).
Re:Or that the people will bring them home... (Score:5, Insightful)
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... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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yes, unfortunately, "Those orders were illegal" has recently been roundly thrown out as a defence for not following orders by a military judge who didn't want to know and refused even to hear the argument, calling it a 'political question'. (someone else find the reference). The average soldier\marine\airborne (wait, are airborn army or air force?) is stuck between a rock & a hard place.
Legal orders (Score:3, Informative)
That's all well and good as far as it goes, but in the case of Iraq, the orders to invade were probably legal, or at least ambiguous enough that ordinary soldiers were correct to obey them. You really don't want to turn every E-3 into an amateur international lawyer - the military would fall apart. Orders given by superior officer should be presumed to be lawful unless you have a compelling reason to believe that they are not. Some of t
Re:Or that the people will bring them home... (Score:5, Insightful)
A future adminstration has to decide whether to keep the soldiers there or not, not the soldiers.
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I might say, as an ex-service member, that invading other sovereign states isn't the same thing as "protecting their country".
I'm not saying I disagree with your point that they knew or should have known what they were getting into, just that some people actually believe protecting their country actually entails protecting their country rather than starting wars in other countries.
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Most of the military I know will proudly put their lives on the line to protect their country and our freedom. No questions asked.
The problem is that it's not clear that our operations in Iraq are achieving either of the above.
It gets more difficult when US soldiers show up and realize they are being used by tribal leaders to wage civil war or settle old scores. That's not what they signed up for.
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If they hope that people will bring them home if they miss the enemy, then they're fucking stupid. How is anybody going to notice whether they're missing or not, let alone whether they're doing it on purpose? If they really want to go home, then they ought to just refuse to fire at all -- that'll get them home a lot faster!
Re:Soldiers Have a Hard Time Thinking for Themselv (Score:4, Insightful)
Some soldiers != all soldiers.
We generally only hear about the bad eggs, and never really about the normal guy/gal in the service (or police). Most of my high school friends ended up in the Army or Navy, and none of them are really as you describe. The ones who went to Iraq/Afghanistan were DEEPLY effected by the experience, in negative ways. I actually have never met anyone who was happily following orders in those places, there is a deep conflict.
Even the people I know who joined for gung-ho post 9/11 patriotism are hurt by Iraq. The patriotism wears off rather fast in circumstances.
As for police... I have met some bad ones, but generally they are just working stiffs like the rest of us. I also know my fair share of ex-police, and they are among some of the nicest people I know. And most of my experiences with police have been positive, IF I'm not actually doing something wrong. A lot of police will give leniency (i.e. a warning) when they are enforcing a law they don't agree with, or you are just "technically" disobeying the law. They are, like the rest of us, just people.
Most cops are fine, as long as you are not an ass to them.
Every profession has assholes, you can't just stereotype everyone to whatever mold you want. Well you CAN, but then don't complain when your treated like an ass.
That said, I have met a couple gung-ho soldiers who would fall into the evil category, oddly most of them were Marines. This doesn't imply, though, that ALL of them are assholes.
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Wow.. DO you have a severe misunderstanding of things.
First, the order to do X aren't spelled out to them. They have a limited number of scenarios and resources at their disposal and when command says take and secure that hill, or weed out resistance in this town, the soldier have to assess the situation, develop a plan of action, implement it, correct for when something goes wrong, and hopefully not killing innocents or themselves. A drone couldn't do this because no two situations are identical.
You must b
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No, you seem to be confused with the "they are taught not to say I don't wanna do it becaus
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There is a good point here, but I think you've over-achieved. Any military member (I've been a sailor these decades) swears "to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic, bear true faith and allegiance to the same, and obey the lawful orders of officers appointed over them" (quick brain dump, not to be confused with a proper quote of the oath).
By definition, you cannot be brainwashed into mind
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Let me guess: Private-for-life, in charge of pop-and-chips procurement?
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Oh, so you ran the PX then. Gotcha.
Seriously, if you think a soldiers job is to obey unquestioningly, your career with the military must not have been a very successful one. As a section commander I went out of my way to try and get soldiers under my command who could think on their feet, and who weren't afraid to speak their minds. Most of my superiors attempted to cultivate similar attitudes at all levels of leadership. I'm sure that a soldier who can't think was a wonderful concep
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What, in the name of sanity, is that supposed to mean?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CJTF-76 [wikipedia.org]
Combined Joint Task Force - 82 (CJTF-82) was a US led subordinate formation of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). It served as both the National Command Element for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, reporting directly to the Commander, United States Central Command, and as ISAF's Regional Command East. It was replaced by Combined Joint Task Force - 101 (CJTF-101) in early April of 2008 [1].
CJTF-82 was headquartered at Bagram Airfield.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Commissioned_Officer_in_Charge [wikipedia.org]
Non-Commissioned Officer in Charge
The designation Non-Commissioned Officer in Charge, usually abbreviated to NCOIC (or NCO I/C), signifies an individual in the enlisted ranks of a military unit who has limited command authority over others in the unit.
OEF8 is Operation Enduring Freedom 8 presumably.